


7 : 


Wi 


7% 





hy cm 4 


e 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
In 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/modernsundayschoO0arch_0 


THE MODERN 
SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


Ti? 7 ’ 
ley | vs 
, e os ae : 
Any ‘pie 
wa i 
A fee 
STi : 
“a 
iy ‘ 
i 
, 
7 ? 
’ . 
fs 
_" 4 
° 
\ 
i 
1 
a7 
i 
i] 
La 
| 
] 
ta 
oe 
; 
it's 
+ > 
ese 
i . 
Piae ~~ F 
Siw a 





THE MODERN 
SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


Its theory and practice 


By 


George Hamilton Archibald 


Principal, Westhill Training College, Birmingham, England 


» tf \ 
‘ MAR i4 1989 
a ak { 


TFG ~ ee re AS 
SYLOGICAL SEES 






THE CENTURY CO. 
New York & London 


Copyright, 1926, by 
THE CENTURY CoO, 


PRINTED IN U. §S. A. 


TO 
THE ENTHUSIASTIC STAFF 
WORKING WITH HIM AT WESTHILL 
THE AUTHOR AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATES 
THIS BOOK 


LT a : Yh iy us om, bd 4 (2 oa 
ap pe see ty on aaah 
Hf u , ‘ é 4 7 
j , ym , . 
Seger ei Meta y 
" ; 
a? } 
+ 
‘ 
4 
J i 
he 
Ps 
iw 
: 
t 
= 
oy 
t 
. 
‘ 
‘ 
« 
i 
' 
‘ i ' ¥ 
» 
| 
y ’ 1 pe 
% 
; . 
we ‘ ’ 
é y f ; 


vero Vee SEN 
hay 4 pie 

‘fs “) fay 
V.ieae Wii at: NaF es 





PREFACE 


This is not a book on psychology. It deals 
with psychology in a limited way for the light it 
may throw upon the problems of childhood and 
adolescence, and in particular upon methods 
of effective religious education of youth. The 
aim of the author, however, has been to produce a 
book that is more practical than theoretical. The 
practical suggestions it contains are the result of 
considerable experience as a Sunday-school super- 
intendent and scout-master. Most of the prob- 
lems discussed have been personally encountered. 
The methods suggested are the outcome of many 
experiments and are based on a fairly intimate 
knowledge of the difficulties which challenge the 
great multitude of workers who are giving gratui- 
tous service to the cause of the Christian nurture 
and training of youth. 


Se At 
» ~ ns : i , 
a’ of 
ie a ere ay 
oe h pv 
‘7 


- 


' eae 





) uy Hol ‘ .s % ‘ 
fe HOC gO i 
4 a i ahih iar: 
} y'\ : oh Tay) waa sib. . 
a3 PRA ae) Gri S ah We iss 
aR oe rH, [OP A\Ap Mid ay ene oy. Bh batt 
A fips ly ie OS a 
At ‘¥ Aye us : Pi... eR oO Ae 
’ vie. ay aay ¢ P 7%, a 
oi ; ‘ ; 
Le> i } re thing 
MAM he Ase) 
; ~ he ai Wh i OL 
Oe ‘ Pi at 
fe os be atta PS AG a) Py 
) aur tS, hata hip 
‘ 
i 
i 
Fy 
ie 
} 
q 
: 
,% 
xs 
f 
i 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 
I Tue Oup anp THE New . 


II BeraGinnines AND GrowTH 
III DecenTrRALizATION AND UNITY 
IV Tue Graded SCHOOL . 
V ATMOSPHERE 
VI Learnine sy Doine . 
VII Puay anp Expression 
VIII Svuacestion 
IX Specrau Days. 
X Weex-Day Activities 
XI Prizes anp Rewarps . 
XII Orricers aNnD MANAGEMENT . 
XIII Visrrine aNp Visitors 
XIV GiIvING . 
XV TRaApdITIONALISM 


XVI Lity Work 


Lay, 
14] 
151 


. 163 
. 174 
vieu 


188 


- 192 


197 


. 204 


c. 


+ 
i 


‘e) p ' vt 


r | 


“het iy 


ia 


; 
( 
oy 
( 
Pa 


¥ 





THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 





THE MODERN 
SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


CHAPTER I 
THE OLD AND THE NEW 


“Tuy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.”’ 
The quotation is from the familiar story of the 
visit of Jesus to the Temple when he was twelve 
years of age. The narrative was not written for 
children and if told without explanation or com- 
ment exactly as it is written in Luke’s Gospel will 
doubtless leave a disquieting impression on their 
minds, the obvious deduction being that Jesus was 
not very thoughtful for his father and mother. 
The wording of the narrative appears clearly to 
give this impression, for his mother spoke re- 
proachfully, almost querulously: ‘Son, why hast 
thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and 
> There is more 
than astonishment in the expression used. Mof- 

3 


I have sought thee sorrowing.’ 


4 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


fatt’s translation reads: ‘‘My son, why have you 
behaved like this to us? Here have your father 
and I been looking for you anxiously.” The les- 
son is clearly one for fathers and mothers, teachers 
and churches, who have been, and are, seeking 
youth anxiously, even sorrowingly. 

Boys and girls of the twentieth century, like 
the Boy of Nazareth, are misunderstood. The in- 
cident calls us to a reconsideration of our attitude 
toward childhood and youth, and the question 
arises, “Why are we seeking our children sorrow- 
ing?” 'The two-thousand-year-old narrative an- 
swers, “They understood him not.” 

There are at least two kinds of people in the 
world: those who seek to dominate their fellows, 
and those who seek to understand them. Reform 
is being advocated with great vigor by a large and 
ever increasing number of people who are seeking 
to make progress in religious education, not by 
dominance of the child, but by sympathy for and 
understanding of him. They sometimes come un- 
der the criticism of worthy people because they 
hesitate to overstress some of the old doctrines 
which dominated the practice of the Sunday- 
schools of yesterday. Take, for example, the 
doctrine of conversion. It involves an abstract 
idea, entirely beyond the comprehension of 


THE OLD AND THE NEW 5 


_ younger children. But even for adults the Great 
Teacher was not satisfied with conversion. He 
said with emphasis, “Except ye be converted 
and...’ The significance is great. And 
what? “And become as little children... .” 
That is, be childlike; be teachable, be humble 
“like this little child.” It must have been a little 
child, one in whom the spirit of emulation had not 
yet awakened. 

The sympathetic student of the unfolding life 
sees the fallacy of making a religious appeal to the 
child in the same form as may be successfully used 
in addressing the adolescent or adult. He ob- 
serves cause and effect, and refuses to waste time, 
effort, and opportunity. He is anxious to bring 
the evangel both to child and to man, and possibly 
possesses the additional virtues of willingness to 
study and patience to experiment until he finds 
out the right method and the right moment. 

Again, sympathetic students of young life rec- 
ognize the need for grading and departmental or- 
ganization. Now, organization also is under sus- 
picion in some quarters as being unspiritual. Nor 
is it difficult to understand this more or less natural 
aversion, for there is too much government in the 
world and not enough freedom. Over-organiza- 
tion imprisons life and tends to stifle initiative. 


6 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


Organization should be as simple as it is possible 
to make it, but cannot be dispensed with lest indi- 
vidualism should run riot and codperative life 
prove impossible. Once we appreciate its dangers 
and at the same time realize its value we shall not 
go far wrong. 

Modern thought is becoming more and more 
averse to making fine distinctions between secular 
and religious. Body and soul are inseparable; at 
any rate it is impossible to reach the soul except 
through the body. ‘The mother’s work in caring 
for the body of the child is not secular. The day- 
school teacher’s work is not secular. The teach- 
ing of arithmetic, history, and geography is nec- 
essary and basal to spirituality. How can a man 
hope to do justly and live righteously if he cannot 
keep accounts and balance his books? How can 
a man appreciate international brotherhood if he 
knows nothing of geography? These things are 
basal and fundamental. Are not basal and fun- 
damental things of spiritual significance? The 
spiritual and the secular cannot be separated. 

Jesus came to bring healing, health, wholeness, 
holiness to mankind; to bring better housing, bet- 
ter food, better education, better relations between 
capital and labor, tribe and tribe, nation and na- 
tion: these things are all inseparable from religion. 


THE OLD AND THE NEW {{ 


The religious educator of yesterday rather prided 
himself that his work was essentially spiritual. 
With just a little suspicion of self-righteousness 
he looked upon modern movements as “machinery” 
and felt it his duty to call attention to that fact. 
Sometimes one wonders if he may not have made 
“spirituality” a cloak for inefficiency. 

The child is a pragmatist: he judges values by 
results. Religion for children must be presented 
as something to live by more, even, than something 
to die by. Generally speaking, the church is find- 
ing itself more and more concerned with man’s 
social conditions—with his unclean face, his scanty 
clothing, and his ravenous appetite. The Sun- 
day-school teacher of to-day is dealing with a far 
wider circle of need than the teacher of yesterday. 
Therefore the Sunday-school leader must have a 
clear aim, and that aim must be stated concretely. 
It is not enough to talk about sin and salvation in 
general. Make religion concrete, and the ab- 
stract will take care of itself. Boys and girls 
must be prepared specifically to meet every situ- 
ation that they are likely to have to face. 

Religious education must help youth to develop 
a sound physical constitution. This requires 
good nutrition, healthful exercise, and personal 
cleanliness. II] health is the cause of much moral 


8 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


delinquency. Abounding vitality ought to be the 
birthright of every normal boy and girl. 

Religious education must prepare youth for 
group life. As civilization advances, codperative 
life becomes more and more imperative. There is 
little place for the hermit and less for the cynic. 
The child must be trained as an individual, but 
even more, perhaps, as one of a group. 

The school must prepare the boy for industrial 
life. The project system in day or Sunday-school 
will help in this particular. The dignity of la- 
bor and freedom from snobbishness must be in- 
culcated. The Sunday-school cannot prepare the 
youth for an industrial vocation as the day-school 
can, but it can do much in molding him for honesty 
and integrity. Every man should be a producer. 
There is little room for slackers. Men must earn, 
not beg their bread. ‘There is room in the world 
for every good workman. Every man should 
have a trade or a vocation. Jesus was a carpen- 
ter. The Sunday-schools have done much to 
steady economic relations. Many men of high 
achievement owe a great deal to the religious edu- 
cation of Sunday-schools and are not backward 
in saying so. What has been done in the past 
will be done in the future, but it will be even better 
done. 


ee eee 


== —_ es 


THE OLD AND THE NEW 9 


Religious education will furnish the mind of the 
youth with imagery of a high character and will 
inspire him with the nobleness of commonplace 
duties. 

The curriculum must be planned with the home 
and family life of the child in mind. This, not 
only to affect and improve his conduct in the home, 
but also to prepare him ultimately for parental 
obligations. The home is the heart of the com- 
munity, and the school can do much to cultivate 
a clean and wholesome atmosphere. ‘The destiny 
of the race is here at stake. 

Nor is all this a counsel of perfection. I know 
how easy it is to say what ought to be, but I sug- 
gest that we have wasted much time and effort in 
attempting to deal with religion almost wholly in 
the abstract and general. The right and success- 
ful way is to deal with it in the concrete and par- 
ticular. Remember we are dealing with the im- 
mature. 

Now, those who belong to the old school and 
those who belong to the new have in reality one 
aim and one purpose. ‘There is little to choose be- 
tween them in purity of motive, and one can see in 
these later days a better understanding growing 
up between the two groups. ‘The sooner there is 
singleness of aim the better for child and church. 


10 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


May it not be that these two great forces in the 
church will sink their differences and become allies, 
finding a common cause in educational evangelism? 
Speaking from a considerable acquaintance with 
modern school leaders, I believe it to be true that 
their aim is to bring the evangel to child and to 
youth, that this is their first and chief purpose; 
they have learned that a better method will make 
the evangel more attractive to the young. Edu- 
cation and evangelism must go hand in hand. 

Our pygmy minds cry out for finality, but 
there is no such thing in this life; probably not in 
any other. But out of an eternity of the past will 
grow another of the future. “It is better to 
travel than to arrive.” 

One thing is sure; if the church and the Sunday- 
school are failing, or partly failing, the fault is not 
with the children. We can get more than a grain 
of comfort from the fact that if the boys with 
whom we live were as good as the Boy of Nazareth 
we, like the parents of old, would still be crying 
out, “Thy father and I have sought thee sorrow- 
ing.” 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Schweitzer, Albert, “Memoirs of Childhood and Youth,’ 
Allen & Unwin (London), 1924. 


THE OLD AND THE NEW oa 


Taylor, A. R., “The Study of the Child,’ Appleton, 
1909, 

Montessori, Maria, “The Montessori Method: Sci- 
entific Pedagogy as Applied to Child Education,” 
translated by A. E. George, Heinemann (London), 
1920. 

Mumford, Edith E. Read, “The Religion of a Little 
Child,’ Pilgrim Press (London), 1921. 

Poulson, Emilie, “In the Child’s World,’ Philip (Lon- 
don), 1923. 

Coe, George A., “Education in Religion and Morals,’ 
Revell, 1904. 

Hadfield, J. A., “Psychology and Morals,’ Methuen 
(London), 1924. 


CHAPTER II 
BEGINNINGS AND GROWTH 


Tur Sunday-school movement, to-day one of 
the mightiest religious forces of the world, owes its 
beginning in its modern form very largely to Rob- 
ert Raikes of Gloucester, England, printer and 
publisher, whose father before him was editor and 
publisher of the “Gloucester Journal.” We know 
little of Raikes’ early life, but from his own mem- 
oranda the fact is established that the first 
Sunday-school was begun at the close of the year 
1781 or the beginning of 1782. ‘The moral uplift 
of neglected children was certainly in his mind, 
but the earliest of his Sunday-schools was started 
more with the aim of helping street children to 
read and write than with any immediate higher 
purpose. He was always keenly desirous of up- 
lifting the poor and developing good citizens as 
well as educating the ignorant. In evidence of 
the early success of the movement Raikes’ memo- 


randum records: ‘*A woman who lives in a lane 
12 


li Mae in eR ae wo 








. 


so ed 


BEGINNINGS AND GROWTH 13 


where I had fixed a school told me some time ago 
that the place was quite a heaven upon Sundays 
compared to what it used to be. 'The number who 
have learnt to read and say their catechism is so 
great that I am astonished at it. . . . The prin- 
ciple I inculcate is to be kind and good natured to 
each other ; not to provoke one another ; to be duti- 
ful to their parents; not to offend God by cursing 
and swearing.” } 

It is interesting to note that the first Sunday- 
school teachers were paid for their work. Raikes 
says, “Having found four persons who had been 
accustomed to instruct children in reading, I en- 
gaged to pay the sum required for receiving and 
instructing such children as I should send to them 
every Sunday.” ? 

Here is an interesting extract from an old di- 
ary: 

I, Adam Fitch, and my wife agree with the following 
gentlemen :— 

Mr. John Gray 
Mr. George King 
Mr. John Aldridge 
Mr. John Fincham 


1 Lloyd, “Sketch of the Life of Robert Raikes Esq.,” pp. 
14-15. 
2 “Sketch of the Life of Robert Raikes Esq.,” p. 19. 


14 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


Parishioners of Haverhill, in the Counties of Essex and 
Suffolk, to teach the Children of the Sunday School in 
the aforesaid Haverhill on Sundays for one year begun 
for the first time August 3rd. 1788, for the Sum of six 
pounds, thirteen shillings and fourpence which is two- 
thirds of ten pounds. 


These Sunday-schools spread very rapidly, and 
in 1785, when there were about twenty-five thou- 
sand scholars in the Sunday-schools of England 
and Wales, the first Sunday-School Society was 
established. After this the voluntary system of 
teaching gained ground, and schools became more 
and more places for religious instruction. In 
1803 it was felt that the churches should take up 
the institution as their own special work, and also 
that a Sunday-school literature should be created. 
To accomplish these things a Sunday-School 
Union was founded, and almost simultaneously the 
first lesson course was published. It was called, 
“A select list of scripture for a course of reading 
in Sunday-schools.” 

It is not definitely known when the first Sunday- 
school after the Raikes pattern was established in 
America. Francis Asbury had much to do with 
popularizing the movement, establishing what was 
doubtless the first Sunday-school in Virginia in 
1786. The Methodist Episcopal Conference at 





BEGINNINGS AND GROWTH 15 


Charleston, South Carolina, in 1790, ordered pas- 
tors to form Sunday-schools for whites and blacks, 
with voluntary teachers. In 1803 the first 
Sunday-school in New York was established. In 
1812 a Sunday-school was instituted in Boston. 
In 1814-16 there was a general awakening of in- 
terest in the churches on behalf of Sunday-schools. 
In 1816 the New York Sunday-School Union was 
established, and in 1824 the American Sunday- 
School Union organized. From this time on the 
growth of Sunday-schools was steady. 

Special interest attaches to the establishment in 
the year 1872 of the Uniform Lesson System. 
The idea appealed to the sentiment and to the im- 
agination so strongly that it was readily taken up 
and adopted by all Sunday-schools, not only in 
America but practically throughout the world. 
From the point of view of the adult the idea of 
millions of pupils and teachers studying the same 
lesson weekly was one to inspire even the laggards, 
and it did so. The uniform lesson undoubtedly 
has done much to bind together as a unit the great 
Sunday-school forces of the world. The move- 
ment was opportune. The haphazard method of 
choosing lessons soon became a thing of the past. 
Publications and helps sprang up around the 
uniform lesson, and Sunday-school teaching as a 


16 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


whole increased in power and usefulness. The 
uniform lesson was a step forward. It lacked per- 
manency, however, because the lessons were not 
chosen from the point of view of the nature and 
needs of the child. Still, it served its purpose and 
laid foundations for further advance. 

But what was good for 1872 may not be good 
for a half-century later. The point of view is 
changing, and past achievements are to be used 
as stepping-stones to future progress. Just at 
the time when the principle of the International 
Uniform Lessons seemed to be well established 
thoughtful men began seriously to study child psy- 
chology. Previously psychology had centered in 
the study of the mature mind, but now it extended 
to the study of the immature. Bodies of facts 
concerning child life and mental development were 
gathered and important principles deduced from 
these facts. Child study centered attention upon 
the nature and needs of children. Man had 
learned much about himself in the study of ma- 
turity, and now he began to develop a better un- 
derstanding of children. The study of the child 
revealed the fallacy of uniformity. From the 
adult point of view uniformity seemed to many to 
be ideal, but from the point of view of the needs 
of children it was sadly deficient. 


BEGINNINGS AND GROWTH 17 


Everything depends on the point of view. The 
popular view in 1872 was that all religious educa- 
tion must begin with the Bible; but the point of 
view of the present day is that all religious educa- 
tion must begin with the pupil. In the olden days 
childhood was looked upon as a misfortune, some- 
thing to be pitied, and the object of the parent 
and teacher was to rescue the child from himself. 
The idea was to press him, push him, hurry him 
into being a man. The argument was: there’s 
only one life worth living and that is the life of 
maturity ; immaturity is something to escape from 
with all possible speed. But the new point of 
view is that life in all its beauty is to be found in 
the child. Not life in embryo only, but glad, 
happy, full, free life. Life, young or old, is a 
growth, and the joy of living is the joy of grow- 
ing. When we look at the religious life from this 
point of view we see that the object of the teacher 
is to help each individual to live out his growing, 
developing life to the full, and to supply it with 
the nurture needed not only for the future but 
primarily for the present stage of development. 

The uniform lesson was doubtless better than 
the old haphazard system, which might have any or 
no plan. But the new appreciation of the needs 
of the child demanded a new type of lessons. The 


18 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


International Lessons Council in the course of 
years came to recognize this fact and provided a 
system of graded lessons to meet the needs of the 
growing, developing child. ‘These graded lessons 
are within reach of all the schools. 

With the establishment of the International 
Lesson System there came a new impulse in the 
Sunday-school movement. America became par- 
ticularly active in propaganda, and, linking up 
with English workers, teachers’ conferences and 
conventions were organized, which led to a world- 
wide movement for establishing and improving 
Sunday-schools throughout the world. 

The first World’s Sunday-School Convention 
was held in London in the year 1890 with 904 del- 
egates registered. Three hundred and sixty of 
these were from the United States and sixty-nine 
from Canada. The Sunday-school enrolment of 
the world at this time was reported to be 
19,715,781. In the year 1893 the second World’s 
Convention was held at St. Louis. One hundred 
and twenty-five foreign delegates attended. ‘The 
third World’s Convention was held in 1898 in Lon- 
don; and in 1904 the fourth was convened in Jeru- 
salem, 526 delegates attending from twenty-five 
different countries. Half of these were Amer- 
icans. ‘Three years later, in 1807, the world’s 


BEGINNINGS AND GROW'TH 19 


fifth convention was held in Rome, with 1118 
delegates registered. More recent conventions 
have been held at Washington (1910); Zurich 
(1913); and Tokyo (1920). Consider what it 
means that such a convention should be held in 
Japan, a country that a little more than two 
generations ago was “almost as much a hermit 
nation as Thibet is to-day.” It certainly indicates 
something of progress for a Sunday-school con- 
vention to be received with open arms by a nation 
which only recently welcomed the Christian ideal. 
The convention in Tokyo touched the imagination 
of the Christian churches of the world. The great 
convention hall, especially built for the purpose 
of the convention, was burned to the ground six 
hours before the hour announced for the opening 
of the first meeting. With the codperation of the 
Japanese Government the officials secured other 
buildings and carried the program of the conven- 
tion to a successful issue. Though to many a 
visit to Tokyo meant a journey round the world, 
the convention was attended by 1814 accredited 
delegates from five continents and seventeen coun- 
tries. 

It is quite possible that World’s Conventions 
have reached high water-mark so far as numbers 
attending them is concerned. ‘The Glasgow con- 


20 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


vention held in June, 1924, was not so largely at- 
tended as some of the others, there being present 
2693 delegates from fifty-four countries, 797 of 
these being Americans. The Glasgow convention 
aimed to be practical. There were a number of 
sectional conferences, an exhibition of value, and 
a pageant portraying the history of the Sunday- 
school from its inception. 

Thus out of the past has grown a movement of 
mighty power. The influence of the Sunday- 
school is much greater than is imagined. It does 
its work quietly and persistently. It has many 
shortcomings, and much of its work is amateurish. 
It lacks the glamour of the preaching services and 
the emotional power of the evangelistic mission so 
that slackers without persistence soon give it up. 
Nevertheless it is becoming ever more deeply 
rooted in the convictions and interest of Christian 
workers. Its ramifications extend to the ends of 
the earth. Each denomination has its own pub- 
lishing house, which supplies literature, propa- 
ganda material, and requisites of all kinds. Each 
has its editors, with associates and assistants. 
Conferences, institutes, and training-schools are 
held by the thousand. A complete system of 
teacher training is being wrought out. Theolog- 
ical seminaries, though slow to respond, are awak- 





J 
- 


BEGINNINGS AND GROWTH 21 


ening to the need of special training in religious 
education. 

The war was a setback, but notwithstanding all 
the materialism and all the slackness that must in- 
evitably follow a crisis such as we have passed 
through, there is every cause for hopefulness. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Faris, John T. (editor), “Report of the Ninth World’s 
Sunday School Convention, Glasgow, 1924,” World’s 
Sunday School Association. 

Brown, Arlo A., “A History of Religious Education in 
Recent Times,’ Abingdon Press, 1923. 


DECENTRALIZATION AND 


CHAPTER III 


UNITY 


Tue modern Sunday-school is decentralized ; 
that is, it is organized into departments, each a 


distinct and separate unit. 


has the following departments: 


Department 

1 Cradle Roll 

2 Beginners’ De- 
partment 

8 Primary Depart- 
ment 

4 Junior 
ment 

5 Intermediate De- 
partment 

6 Senior Depart- 
ment 

7 Young People’s 
Department 

8 Adult Depart- 
ment 


Depart- 


Hope for the 


with the graded movement. 


Period 
Infancy 


Early childhood 


Middle childhood 
Later childhood 
Karly adolescence 
Middle adolescence 
Later adolescence 


‘Adult life 


The complete school 


Age 
from birth to 4 
years 
from 4 to 5 years, 
inclusive 
from 6 to 8 years 
from 9 to 11 years 
from 12 to 14 years 
from 15 to 17 years 
from 18 to 23 years 


from 24 years on 


success of the Sunday-school lies 


Grading and decen- 


tralization exist so that instruction and activities 


22 


DECENTRALIZATION AND UNITY 23 


may be specialized to meet the needs of the devel- 
oping life. In many a Sunday-school the first re- 
quirement is to bring order out of chaos. There 
is little use in discussing principles of teaching 
until the problems of reverence and atmosphere 
are solved. 

We have many times heard it said that order 
may only be secured by good teachers, but that is, 
at most, only half the truth. Many schools have 
few good teachers because they cannot keep them 
when they get them, for the simple reason that 
good teachers cannot or will not work in chaos. 
Order, reverence, and suitable atmosphere are 
largely the result of good organization. 

When the word “decentralization” was first in- 
troduced into the discussion of Sunday-school ad- 
ministration it brought apprehension to many be- 
cause they thought that decentralization would 
destroy the unity of the school; but their fears 
were groundless, as has been proved by later de- 
velopments. There is such a thing as unity in di- 
versity, diversity in unity. ‘The Sunday-school of 
to-morrow will be decentralized, but it will also 
be centralized. There will be a large measure of 
necessary freedom in each department, but also a 
centralization through oversight in codperation 
with leaders, officers, and teachers. The principle 


24 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


of gradation and decentralization will do more to 
make effective work possible than any other one 
new principle that has been introduced in these 
later years. Blackboards, pictures, requisites of 
whatever kind, all take second place as compared 
with decentralization and its accompanying grad- 
ing. These are of primary and, vital importance 
to the welfare of every Sunday-school. 

The principle of decentralization has really 
been accepted for years, for one never hears of a 
Sunday-school that has not at least its “infant 
class” or “primary department” separated from 
the main school. Most superintendents appreci- 
ate the fact that the little children must be sepa- 
rated from the older ones. But the vitality has 
been sapped, the energy of the school neutralized, 
and the older departments rendered comparatively 
valueless because of the limitation of the princi- 
ple. There is as great need for children of nine 
to eleven years of age, and twelve to fourteen, to 
have their own departments, as for four- and five- 
year-olds. ‘This statement will be questioned, but 
not by the careful student either of psychology or 
of school administration. In the Sunday-school 
of to-morrow there must be no “main” school. We 
are familiar with all the arguments used by those 
who like to see a large company, who have built 


DECENTRALIZATION AND UNITY 25 


the Sunday-school buildings almost as a replica of 
the church building itself, and whose methods are 
borrowed from those of the pulpit. We are com- 
ing to see that if we are to deal successfully with 
the adolescent youth we must differentiate them 
as a psychological group. Further, each group 
must be limited in number. Many leaders favor 
departmental groups that do not exceed sixty or 
at the outside seventy pupils each. 

There are a number of reasons why decentral- 
ization is essential. First, it settles the much dis- 
cussed problem, Would you have small classes or 
large? An Intermediate Department, for exam- 
ple, with forty scholars, divided into eight classes 
with five in each, has all the advantage both of a 
large and a small class, for the leader and the 
teachers can then make the appeal both to the 
group and to the individual. 

The department leaders and teachers may meet 
in weekly conference and discuss their individual 
and group problems. ‘They may talk freely about 
particular pupils in the department—their be- 
havior and interests—and all this helps to solve 
class problems. It will thus be seen that the ques- 
tion of large or small classes is answered by retain- 
ing the best elements in both plans. 

Secondly, psychologists recognize that there 


26 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


must be physical nearness to secure mental near- 
ness. ‘The problems of order, reverence, and at- 
mosphere will never be solved until the smaller de- 
partmental system is introduced. Divide the av- 
erage main school of one hundred into two groups 
of fifty and try the experiment for three months. 
Given the right conditions the chances are a hun- 
dred to one that the experiment will become per- 
manent. In the smaller group the superintendent 
and teacher both get nearer to the individual 
pupil. Of course, with little children the princi- 
ple that physical nearness brings mental nearness 
is a well established one, but we are coming to find 
that it applies almost equally to work with ado- 
lescents. Schools should experiment and discover 
for themselves what is the right number. 

Of course it will be said by many, “We cannot 
experiment; we have no room.” But why not? 
The introduction of the principle of decentraliza- 
tion permits the school to meet at different hours. 
The hippodromes are meeting twice nightly, and 
the picture-shows are giving continuous perform- 
ances. ‘The Sunday-school of to-morrow must not 
be tied to any one tradition. Some Sunday- 
schools in Scotland meet at five o’clock in the 
evening, others at half-past six. In eastern 


DECENTRALIZATION AND UNITY 27 


America schools often meet at twelve or half-past 
twelve. I know the arguments that are used 
against two sessions on Sunday afternoon. I also 
know one school with three sessions on Sunday, 
though no officer, teacher, or pupil attends more 
than one. ‘The Sunday-school of the future may 
be an all-day school, meeting continuously from 
morning till evening; a place where children and 
teachers meet for worship, for lessons, for super- 
vised study, for occupations, for reading, or any 
other activities that naturally suggest themselves. 
There may be morning Sunday-schools, afternoon 
Sunday-schools, and evening Sunday-schools, 
though they may be called by some better name. 
Sunday-school will be a rendezvous where comrade 
meets comrade, friend meets friend, and pupil 
meets teacher. Its activities will be prolonged; 
there will be no hurry, comparatively little set pro- 
gram, but abundant opportunity for expression. 
The church will provide picture-rooms, music- 
rooms, work-rooms, recreation-rooms, worship- 
rooms, cinematograph, wireless; and many of these 
will be in use from morning till evening on Sunday, 
to say nothing of week-days. 

It will be urged that this is not the highest ideal. 
Ought not society to cluster round the home rather 


98 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


than the church? We are not living in an ideal 
state of society. There is a city in England (and 
it is not London) with sixty thousand houses “back 
to back,” not one of which provides half enough 
room for the family. The youths of such fam- 
ilies are bound to find a rendezvous somewhere. 
If the church cannot provide this rendezvous, the 
street or the public house will. It is not more 
Sunday-schools that are needed but more useful 
ones, schools that are human, virile, efficient, pow- 
erful, pragmatic. 

Again, other things being equal, the division 
of the school into specialized groups will not only 
be a potent force in securing order and reverence, 
but it will make possible right atmosphere. 

We recognize in the very beginning that if we 
mix junior children with intermediate boys and 
girls the securing of either a good junior or inter- 
mediate atmosphere will be impossible and unifica- 
tion of aim impossible. A department of the 
Sunday-school that attempts to group together 
children of nine and youths of sixteen raises an 
effectual barrier to success. 

Another argument for decentralization is that 
it makes possible indirect teaching. It is one 
thing to carry on a campaign of personal evangel- 
ism with adults, quite another with children. The 


DECENTRALIZATION AND UNITY 29 


child is so suggestible that the gospel call can be 
brought to him much more powerfully indirectly 
than directly. ‘Therefore, the leaders of the 
school must above all things create an atmosphere 
that will do its own work. 

The point is this. If you wish to evangelize a 
mature adult you must reach him chiefly through 
his intellect ; you will argue with him and show him 
the reason for things; but the child accepts truth 
uncritically. The best method to use in the adult 
department may be the worst possible with the be- 
ginners. If space permitted we could bring argu- 
ments to show that like differences exist all the way 
through the grades. 

A decentralized Sunday-school without a train- 
ing class misses a most vital part of its life. Or- 
ganization helps spirituality, just as spirituality 
helps organization. It is at this weekly class that 
most of the arrangements, changes, and plans are 
made; here is unity. The opening devotional ses- 
sion of the weekly class is of the utmost importance 
in gaining unity. It matters little if the children 
of the Cradle Roll or the Beginners’ Department 
are not known to the members of the Intermediate 
and Senior Departments; but it is of first impor- 
tance that teachers of all departments are ac- 
quainted with one another, and that leaders of de- 


30 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


partments work in harmony with each other. It 
is not so much unity of spirit among the pupils 
that is necessary for the school’s good as wnity of 
spirit among the workers. 'The weekly prepara- 
tion class smoothes over and harmonizes little 
matters that might easily lead to friction and yet 
leaves with each department all the power to plan, 
to apply method, and to secure the spirit that is 
so vitally necessary to make each Sunday’s work 
the best possible. 

Paradoxical though it may appear, the aim of 
decentralization is not separation but unity. The 
modern school seeks to unify itself in the church. 
It aims to unite church and school in inseparable 
bonds of worship and service. Indeed, the Jun- 
ior Department is the church for juniors. At- 
tempts have been made to organize and carry ona 
so-called Junior Church apart from the Church 
School, but none of these have been so successful as 
the Junior Department itself. 

When possible, officers, heads of departments, 
and teachers should attend the more important 
meetings for adult worship. But it is physically 
impossible to attend all, and pastors who have ex- 
pected this have been responsible for much lack of 
unity. The conception of the church must be 


DECENTRALIZATION AND UNITY 31 


broadened or these breaches of unity will be per- 
petuated. Dr. John Cairns once said, “When I 
see a young man teaching the Gospel to half a 
dozen children I recognize a living branch of the 
church of Christ.” 

From this point of view it will be seen that the 
modern Sunday-school is undertaking a work of 
first importance. Its aim is to provide a place 
where the children may not only learn but wor- 
ship, and not only worship but worship with ap- 
preciative intelligence. The modern school is 
aiming to supply that which the senior church can- 
not provide, namely, a worshipful atmosphere 
suited to the changing need of the unfolding life. 
It is aiming to provide an atmosphere in which the 
Father can be worshiped in the beauty of holiness. 
Though equal in reverence and devotion to the 
most beautiful adult service, it will not by any 
means be a copy of such a service, for children’s 
worship must be more spontaneous than that of 
grown-ups who carefully observe all the conven- 
tions and traditions. 

When this imperative demand of child nature 
is recognized by the church it is probable that 
leaders will be set apart, trained, and ordained for 
this special service; and so it ought to be. But 


82 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


such leaders must not be men only. Leadership 
in the younger grades is a woman’s work. Child 
nature demands a graded school, and the vexed 
question of the child’s relation to the church will 
never be settled until this principle is recognized. 
The failure to recognize it causes many very de- 
plorable breaches between church and school. 
The problem of holding the older pupil for the 
church, will never be solved until the needs of the 
spiritual life of the little child are supplied. A 
small percentage of children now attend the adult 
church services, and it is a question whether those 
who do are helped or hindered. ‘To attend a serv- 
ice regularly when only one tenth of that service 
is meant for him may be detrimental to a child. 
An occasional visit with parents or teachers is a 
different thing. To have to sit still week by week 
through a comparatively uninteresting service 
may have serious effects in the subconscious nature 
of the child. ‘The result of this will be seen as 
soon as the pupil is free from authority; in many 
cases the church sees him no more; we reap as we 
sow. ‘lhe Sunday-school of yesterday, while se- 
curing the attendance of multitudes of children, 
more or less failed to nurture the love of worship, 
and the church is suffering to-day in consequence. 


DECENTRALIZATION AND UNITY 33 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Athearn, W. S., “The Church School,” Pilgrim Press, 
1914. 

Cope, H. F., “The Modern Sunday School and Its 
Present-Day Task,’ Revell, 1916. 


CHAPTER IV 
THE GRADED SCHOOL 


A symMpaTHETIc study of the unfolding life of 
childhood and youth has convinced open-minded 
folk that for effective religious education the pu- 
pils must be graded. But not only must the pu- 
pils be graded; lessons, methods, and even forms 
of worship also must be graded. ‘The one is as 
imperative as the other. Calendar age, in itself, 
is not a sufficient basis for grading. Age group- 
ing is approximate only, but, generally speaking, 
departmental groups include the years named in 
the preceding chapter. Let us consider these de- 
partments in detail. 

THe Crappie Rott DepartMEentT.—There must 
have been a spark of inspiration in the soul of 
the enthusiast who first suggested the Cradle Roll, 
for it has been and continues to be a valuable 
adjunct to the Sunday-school. 

The Cradle Roll is a distinct department. It 
links up the home and the church by the regis- 


tration of the infant as a member of the church 
34 


THE GRADED SCHOOL 35 


school. This is accomplished, after the consent 
of the parents has been obtained, by recording 
the name of the newly born child on the Cradle 
Roll register. The Cradle Roll in the Episcopal 
Church is called the Baptismal Roll. Many 
families who are not interested in the ordinary 
activities of the church may be reached by this 
seemingly insignificant agency. In the Cradle 
Roll will be found a point of contact with the un- 
churched that is singularly effective. The church 
must reach the home and touch the home life. 
The presence of people in large numbers at 
the church service does not in itself insure that 
this is being done. Through the Cradle Roll it 
is easily possible not only to influence the mother 
and father of the child in intimate personal 
ways but also to lead them for the little one’s 
sake to make their home Christian in its ideals and 
atmosphere. ‘This is a community service of the 
highest order. ‘The Cradle Roll has often un- 
locked doors and permitted the entrance of the 
gospel messengers to families that otherwise would 
have remained untouched. Each minister should 
see to it that there is a Cradle Roll in his Sunday- 
school. 

The Cradle Roll needs the backing of the min- 
ister and the officers of the church. It will not 


386 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


be efficient if it is carried on by one or two 
individuals merely on their own initiative. If 
the pastor fancies the Cradle Roll to be an insig- 
nificant agency and not worth advocating, the 
effort will likely be handicapped and the result 
minimized. One Cradle Roll sermon a year is a 
good investment for any minister. 

There is a touch of sentiment about the idea, 
and mothers, especially those who are not attached 
to any particular church, are usually willing to 
allow the names of their little children to be en- 
tered. The very fact that the arrival of the new 
baby has been worthy of notice by the church 
folk means a good deal, and the consciousness that 
some one outside its own particular family is in- 
terested in that baby means much to the mother. 
The Cradle Roll card helps to seal the compact, 
making the parents feel that the child is in some 
slight sense, at any rate, a part of the church’s 
life. The Cradle Roll is a simple thing and can 
be carried on unobtrusively. Every minister 
and every superintendent should see to it that this 
department receives special encouragement. 

The Cradle Roll superintendent must have a 
gift of winning her way into the hearts of mothers 
and fathers. She should be a person of some 
leisure. One who is a mother is to be preferred; 


THE GRADED SCHOOL 37 


at any rate the superintendent should be a 
married woman. She should be one who is en- 
thusiastic, resourceful, and have a deep sense of 
responsibility. She should not be one who is 
easily discouraged. She should be officially ap- 
pointed by the board of religious education. She 
should gather a group of helpers about her who 
will canvass the community. She will find many 
opportunities of inviting children, other than the 
babies, to join the Sunday-school. Careful rec- 
ords should be kept and the name, date of birth, 
name of father and mother, and church member- 
ship of parents noted in the records. 

The requisites required will be two Cradle 
Rolls—one for the Beginners’ Department, and 
one for the Primary Department; Cradle Roll 
enrolment forms and birthday greeting cards for 
the first, second, and third birthdays. In some 
departments a miniature cradle is used in which 
to place the name of the new member on the day 
of its reception and enrolment. ‘This practice 
appeals to the imagination of the children and 
cultivates a special consideration for the tiny 
ones. 

The enrolment of a Cradle Roll member should 
take place at the Sunday service of the Beginners’ 
Department. The most appropriate child—a 


388 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


brother, or sister, or cousin, or friend of the baby 
—should present the new baby’s name and ad- 
dress written on a piece of paper. After the 
child has told all he knows about the baby a 
Cradle Roll song may be sung, and the depart- 
ment may join in an appropriate devotional pause 
and prayer. Very frequently the children count 
over the number of names already on the Cradle 
Roll. Entering a name should be recognized by 
the department as a very important part of the 
service. When possible it is preferable to have 
the parents and the baby present in the depart- 
ment when the enrolment takes place. The visit 
of course must be a brief one. Probably on most 
Sundays the Cradle Roll babies will be remem- 
bered in prayer or song. 

On the fourth birthday a very special invitation 
should be sent to the child, who is now ready to 
come and join the Beginners’ Department. ‘The 
name is then removed from the Cradle Roll and 
placed upon the Beginners’ register. On that 
day a welcome song should not be forgotten, and 
mothers and fathers should be given a special in- 
vitation to be present. 

Once a year at least there should be a special 
Cradle Roll day in each church; on that Sunday 
all parents may be asked to bring their babies to 


THE GRADED SCHOOL 39 


the school and to participate in the brief exercises ; 
they must not stay long, for the babies may 
protest. 

Systematic visitation ought to take place in the 
Cradle Roll Department, and on the first, second, 
and third birthdays special birthday greeting 
cards should be sent to the homes. 

Occasional meetings of mothers of Cradle Roll 
babies should be held. A strong leader can 
easily arrange mothers’ study classes for con- 
ferences on baby welfare, child nature and 
nurture, and these may be made of immense value 
to young mothers. Often very useful methods of 
community service will suggest themselves to the 
Cradle Roll visitors. ‘There are almost endless 
possibilities. 

The Cradle Roll is the foundation-stone in 
Sunday-school organization. It begins at the 
very beginning. ‘The babies of to-day will be the 
children of to-morrow; the children of to-morrow 
will be the church of the future. 

THE Brecinners’ DepartMEenT.—This depart- 
ment includes children of four and five years of 
age. If the Cradle Roll is well conducted most 
of the recruits for this department will come from 
that source. It is better not to receive into the 
Beginners’ Department children under four years 


40 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


of age. Though an occasional child under that 
age might be self-controlled enough to participate 
in the activities of the group without causing 
serious difficulty, the average three- or two-and-a- 
half-year-old is unready for the necessary co- 
operation essential even for the simplest program. 

The Beginners’ is by no means the easiest de- 
partment to conduct; four-year-olds are very 
individual in their outlook as well as in their 
activities. 

Since development is exceeding rapid at this 
period the most successful leaders grade still 
further into “young fours” and “‘old fours,” but 
young or old they all enjoy doing things in- 
dependently and are keen to explore everything 
and to make discoveries for themselves. Begin- 
ners learn chiefly through the senses of touch and 
sight and therefore must be allowed great liberty 
of action and supplied with all sorts of useful 
and interesting material to assist them in their 
quest. ‘To play out the story is one of the most 
useful forms of expression for them, but the story 
must be a very simple one. 

It is important to have the Beginners’ Depart- 
ment entirely separated from the Primary De- 
partment. ‘There should therefore be a special 
staff for the Beginners’ Department. The leader 


THE GRADED SCHOOL 41 


ought to be an experienced kindergartner, and 
she should have a few sympathetic helpers con- 
stantly in attendance. ‘These helpers should have 
had at least some little experience in work with 
children. 

The really successful department from the 
child-nurture point of view must necessarily be 
small. Beginners cannot be handled in crowds; 
much individual attention is essential. The law 
that there must be physical nearness in order to 
secure mental nearness applies here. 

A cheerful, sunny room is most desirable for 
these little ones. It should be bright and beau- 
tiful. Babies absorb their environment more 
than do grown-ups. 

The requisites for the Beginners’ room are as 
follows: a rug or rugs for the floor; kindergarten 
chairs; low tables for handwork, drawing, and 
building; a sand-tray as large as consistent with 
the size and convenience of the room; a black- 
board for the teacher; individual blackboards for 
the children, or better still, blackboards on the 
walls, of course within reach; chalks and dusters, 
for use with blackboards; blocks for building; 
pictures and loose-leaf picture-books; scissors; 
vases and bowls for flowers; a few jugs and a 
watering-can; a dust-pan and brush; a depart- 


42 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


ment register; a good piano; a cupboard low 
enough for the children to reach every shelf and 
compartment. 

There will, of course, be a pianist. ‘The atmos- 
phere created by good and suitable music is quite 
as essential here as in any other department. 
The influence of the pianist in training the young 
child is probably quite as potent as that of the 
story-teller. 

The Beginners’ Department superintendent 
and her helpers should meet weekly with time to 
go thoroughly into all questions and problems 
that arise, and these are many. ‘The problems 
that arise for discussion are largely those con- 
cerned with the children’s activity and behavior. 
Though the lesson material and its presentation 
must of course be carefully considered, the most 
interesting questions are those concerning the 
directing of activities which will make for a help- 
ful atmosphere. The atmosphere of the ideal 
home where the little ones are surrounded with 
the spirit of loving codperation should be the aim, 
and all the simple stories, talks, hymns, prayers, 
and activities should lend themselves to this end. 

Remember we learn by doing. Never do for 
the Beginner what he can possibly do for himself ; 
and it is astonishing what the little child can do 


THE GRADED SCHOOL 43 


under a restrained leader. “A little child shall 
lead them” must be the motto for this department. 
It will often be found that the most elaborate 
plans made in advance must be abandoned, for 
the beginner is a capricious mortal and has ideas 
of his own, and these ideas cannot always be 
successfully ignored. A Beginners’ leader must 
be prepared for anything, for she never knows 
what is going to happen next. The secret of 
success in the Beginners’ Department will be 
found in Froebel’s motto, “Observe the child; he 
will tell you what to do.” 

The British Lessons Council have given care- 
ful and intelligent attention to the choice of 
suitable lessons for each department. The un- 
derlying principles guiding their choice will be 
helpful to leaders and teachers of the Beginners’ 
Department. ‘They are as follows: 

(1) The little child will only realize the 
Fatherhood of God by dwelling on his gifts of 
father and mother love, food and drink and 
shelter, etc. Hence the need of stories of the 
common happenings of daily life, and Bible 
stories which center round the familiar things of 
home. 

(2) By the way of nature and its laws the 
child is led to a knowledge of and gratitude to 


44 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


God, the Creator, whose loving thought and care 
surround everything that he has made. 

(3) Through stories of Jesus the child is in- 
spired to love and follow him. 

(4) Through stories and the practice of kind- 
ness to animals, and through stories of people who 
serve the community, the child is led into a con- 
sciousness of his responsibility to others and to 
a sense of the interdependence of all life. 

Tue Primary DeprartmMent.—This, like all 
the other departments of the graded school, is a 
distinct group of children, teachers, and officers. 
The children are of both sexes, six, seven, and 
eight years of age. ‘The sessions of the depart- 
ment are entirely separate from those of other 
groups. It may meet occasionally with other 
departments of the school, but for the most part 
its work is done in its own room, its program 
growing directly out of the needs of children of 
this age. ‘The music, hymns, prayers, stories, 
lesson materials, and activities, as well as the 
physical equipment, are all adapted to the pupils’ 
requirements. 

The modern Primary Department is not only a 
place of nurture for children but also a laboratory 
of training for the teaching staff of to-morrow. 
An outstanding weakness of the Sunday-school 


THE GRADED SCHOOL 45 


of yesterday was its haphazard method of finding 
teachers. ‘There was neither purpose nor plan 
about it. The modern school with its well or- 
ganized departments and its practice classes has 
done much to solve the teacher problem. The 
Primary Department lends itself, perhaps more 
effectively than any other, to practice teaching. 
The superintendent of the Primary Depart- 
ment should be the best obtainable. She is in 
charge of a delicate and difficult piece of work. 
What are the qualifications necessary for one in 
such an exalted position? ‘Taking for granted 
her spiritual attainments, which are indispensable, 
the leader must have a deep sympathy with the 
needs of child life, and a sincere devotion to 
children. She must be conversant with child 
psychology. She requires a good working knowl- 
edge of the principles and the art of teaching. 
She should be a really good story-teller and of 
course a Bible student. She should be a good or- 
ganizer, not only for the sake of the Sunday work 
but in order to arrange successful week-night social 
activities of a refining and uplifting nature. 
These are high qualifications, but the supreme 
importance of the work demands them. There 
should be an assistant superintendent, whose 
duty it will be to assist the superintendent, and 


46 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


in case of her absence take charge of the de- 
partment. 

A separate departmental room is required for 
the Primary Department. It should be of ample 
size to accommodate the department—the exact 
dimensions dependent of course upon the number 
of pupils—well lighted and cheerful. A cloak- 
room, or lobby which will serve as such, is most 
desirable. Specially designed Primary tables and 
chairs are important. Other necessary equipment 
includes a good piano; a small table for the su- 
perintendent; a table for the secretary; registra- 
tion apparatus; chairs for visitors; well chosen 
pictures; a blackboard; white and colored chalk; 
vases and bowls for flowers (assorted sizes); a 
Cradle Roll; a small doll’s cradle; collection bas- 
kets; a cupboard for storing materials; a waste- 
paper basket; duster and also a dust-pan and 
brush; and such materials for expressional ac- 
tivity as drawing-paper, pencils, crayons with 
boxes to keep them in, sand-trays and sand, small 
bricks or blocks for sand-tray use, ordinary 
building bricks in considerable numbers, plas- 
ticine, and scissors. If tables are impracticable, 
mill-boards should be provided which the children 
may support upon their knees in writing and 
drawing. 


THE GRADED SCHOOL A] 


Lesson material must be chosen to suit the 
needs of children of Primary age. 'Time was 
when all education began with the book, or with 
the teacher, not with the child. It used to be 
thought that the important thing was the lesson, 
but the point of view is changing: the important 
thing is the child. When material was chosen 
from the lesson point of view the lessons committee 
endeavored to divide the Bible into sections so as 
to cover the whole book in six or seven years’ 
study; the question of the effect of this method 
upon the child was secondary. But in these days 
our lessons committees are placing the child in 
the foreground, and the question of what will meet 
his needs is of supreme importance. This change 
of point of view accounts for the many changes 
that have taken place in the selection of lesson 
material in these later years. 

The lessons produced for the graded school by 
the British Lessons Council are chosen with very 
much thought and care and have met with much 
favor in departmentalized Sunday-schools. ‘The 
principles underlying the choice of lessons by the 
British committee are as follows: 


(1) To choose only such stories as will convey a 
thought of God, of Jesus, or of goodness, which the 


48 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


child can grasp at his present stage of development. 
To be led always by the child’s developing interest and 
need. Hence, to avoid such stories as might convey 
false or confusing impressions to the child mind, and to 
keep back certain periods of Bible history in order that 
they may come fresh to the child at the age when they 
will have a special value. 

(2) To show the Christian virtues—self-control, rev- 
erence for God and man, courtesy, truthfulness, kindness 
to animals, happiness as portrayed in familiar surround- 
ings. 

(3) To show the oneness of the human family by 
means of stories of children of other lands. Certain 
stories are included in the course as throwing special 
light on Bible truth and every-day Christian virtues. 
The sources of such stories are indicated in the courses, 
and the stories are treated by lesson writers. 

(4) To make due provision for Easter, Christmas, 
and special gift Sundays (flower, Harvest, hospital) ; 
also to provide special groups of lessons for August 
which shall insure that where the department is dis- 
organized during the holiday month by the absence of 
leaders or teachers, neither the sequence of the course 
nor the teachers’ study shall seriously suffer. 

(5) The Bible verses heading the various groups and 
those attached to the lessons are inserted only for the 
guidance of the teachers in the treatment of the lesson, 
and are not intended for the scholars. 


THE GRADED SCHOOL 49 


Worship is quite as important an element of 
the Primary program as instruction. The pianist 
should make it his or her pleasurable duty to 
secure the best and most suitable music for the 
department. No one hymn-book should be used 
exclusively. Hymn-books are never put into the 
hands of the pupils, nor are hymn-sheets neces- 
sary. The children soon learn the simple Pri- 
mary hymns by heart. 

Children are happy when they are singing; it 
is for them one of the most natural ways of ex- 
pressing happiness. Music should be a real out- 
flowing of the soul, and therefore all the hymns 
should be chosen from the child’s point of view. 
The words should be simple, easily understood, 
and the music should be set neither too high nor 
too low to suit the child voices. Each word and 
syllable should have a corresponding note. As 
far as possible both words and music should in- 
spire and lead to action. 

Tur Junior DepartMENT.—The Junior has 
come almost to a halt in physical growth. 
Later childhood brings a pause in which the child 
matures and makes ready for the adolescent ac- 
celeration which will come with the pubertal crisis. 
Though halting in physical growth, he is growing 


50 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


strong both in body and mind. He is becoming 
self-reliant, too, and while still ready to believe 
what he is told, he begins to question things. 
Riotous imagination is giving place to judgment 
and reason. Quite unconsciously he is finding that 
he can think better as he gathers more facts to 
think with, and he is ready to absorb information 
in vast quantities. His social life, too, is widen- 
ing. He is passing from the comrade to the group 
or tribal stage. ‘Though heroes do not appeal to 
him so much as they will later on, he is ardently 
fond of good stories and should be fed with them. 
Biographies are excellent story material for him, 
for he may be said to make his history out of the 
biographies which he absorbs. As an Interme- 
diate he will be busy connecting these up into 
chronological history. The Junior Department 
should supply this need for concrete biography. 

In this period the child is rapidly developing 
mentally, and while he continues to absorb spirit- 
ual atmosphere through his feelings he is ready 
now for considerable intellectual effort. The 
department includes children approximately nine, 
ten, and eleven years of age and should not extend 
beyond these limits; indeed, narrowing would be 
preferable to extending them, and in large schools 
this may be done. By the time children reach 


THE GRADED SCHOOL 51 


eleven years of age there is such a quickening 
of eager interest for new information that they 
can no longer be kept in the same class with chil- 
dren of nine; therefore, strict attention should be 
given to close grading at the top end. 

The department must have its own room, its 
own lobby or cloak-room and, like other depart- 
ments, be conducted as a separate unit except on 
occasions when the whole school gathers in a united 
session. ‘The department should be divided into 
small classes, preferably of not more than five 
pupils. Classes should be kept small for the fol- 
lowing reasons: for the sake of convenient group 
circles; for close touch of teacher with pupil to 
facilitate the carrying on of expression work. 

The classes should be grouped in semicircles in 
three or four rows, the youngest children in the 
front and the oldest at the back. This will bring 
the children and leader into “physical nearness” 
with one another. It will also enable all the 
pupils to see the hymn-sheets where these are used. 

The equipment for the department should in- 
clude chairs of proper height for the children; 
tables for classes; a good piano; junior hymn- 
books, and a selection of suitable music; hymn- 
stand and calico hymn-sheets ; pictures and maps; 
offering-baskets or plates; blackboard and easel; 


52 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


white and colored chalk; dusters; small table for 
the leader; vases; a box for each class large 
enough to hold expression materials; a box of 
colored crayons; Bibles, preferably the Revised 
Version; ruled paper for written expression and a 
thin drawing-paper of the same size for the pur- 
poses of making drawings, maps, or diagrams; 
some sort of holder for these, made perhaps of 
stiff paper, or thin cardboard; a table for the 
secretary; attendance records. 

Hymn-sheets are to be preferred in some re- 
spects to hymn-books and can be readily made by 
the superintendent of the department or her 
helpers. For this purpose ordinary white calico 
thirty-six inches wide should be purchased and 
the printing done with a set of rubber printing 
stamps, which can be procured at almost any 
rubber stamp outfitting shop at small cost. The 
capital letters should be one and one fourth inches 
and the small letters about an inch in height. If 
they are larger a larger sheet of calico will be 
required. If they are smaller than this they will 
not be decipherable. 

The necessary qualifications of the Junior De- 
partment superintendent are much the same as 
those of the leader in the Primary department. 
To be successful, he or she, for either a man or 


THE GRADED SCHOOL 53 


woman may fill this post, must possess real powers 
of leadership. The superintendent also should 
be a teacher par excellence. He will find in this 
department an incomparable opportunity for 
teaching the Bible to children. It is astonishing 
how much can be acquired in an hour by Junior 
children, if the teaching work is thorough. There 
must be no slipshod, haphazard method here; right 
principles of teaching must be recognized and fol- 
lowed. ‘There should be no wearisome tasks, no 
dull, unrelated memory passages, for the learning 
of which character-impairing bribes have to be 
offered. The Bible must’be presented so that the 
child will be fascinated by its stories, thrilled by 
its life, refined by its poetry, and uplifted by its 
Christ. 

Not only must there be a special selection of 
Bible stories which fit the grade, but the leader 
must keep in mind that this is the most suitable 
time for teaching Bible geography as well as 
Bible manners and customs. These three— 
stories, geography, manners and customs—will 
make an appeal to the most active and restless 
boy or girl that will be certain to secure an 
atmosphere of interested attention. 

The superintendent must be willing to spend 
much time in the selection of hymns to be used. 


54 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


“Didn’t that last hymn fit?” said a ten-year-old 
boy at the close of a service; a worthy compli- 
ment to the leader. It should be even more pos- 
sible here than in the Primary Department to 
make of each service a unit of thought and feeling, 
each item contributing its share to make clear the 
central thought of the hour. 

Talks supplementary to the lesson story 
(which are generally given previous to the latter) 
should often deal with the setting and surround- 
ings of the lives of its heroes. ‘The geography, 
manners and customs, and climate, of the land in 
which the central figures live or have lived should 
be clearly depicted. Maps, diagrams, and other 
means of lesson illustration are useful in this 
department. A good sized brown paper map 
made by the superintendent is often of more value 
for the Junior Department than much more elab- 
orate ones sold at high prices. Most maps have 
too much on them and are confusing. Simplicity 
is very necessary in teaching geography. There 
should be within reach one good physical map of 
Palestine and a good clear map of the world. 

The Junior Department staff should consist of 
the superintendent, an assistant superintendent, 
a pianist, a secretary, a door-keeper, and teachers. 
There should be a Junior preparation class, or 


THE GRADED SCHOOL 55 


training class for specialized training. Teacher 
training classes have not been more successful in 
the past largely because of the fact that they 
have been carried along on too general lines. 
The Junior Department training class should be 
highly specialized; it is for Junior teachers alone. 
To attempt to combine Primary and Junior 
classes is fatal. As has been said elsewhere we 
undertake very much more than simply Bible 
exegesis; Bible study there is, but it is specialized 
Bible study. It cannot be emphasized too 
strongly that it is better to have a small class 
highly specialized than a larger general one. The 
superintendent of the department should lead this 
preparation class. Assistance may be had from 
the minister or other specialists, but the superin- 
tendent should do most of the teaching. 

The following is an agreement made between 
the superintendent and teachers in the Junior 
Department of one Sunday-school: 


“It is agreed, that teachers shall make a particular 
point of informing the department leader if they can- 
not be present on Friday evenings at Training Class at 
7:45 p.M.; that there shall be two helpers appointed 
every Friday night to arrive at Sunday-school precisely 
at 2:30 p.m. to help the superintendent in the prepara- 
tions; that teachers shall arrive on Sunday afternoon 


56 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


not later than 2:45 p.m. and be ready to receive the 
children in the cloak-room at precisely 2:55 p.M.; that 
the children shall be admitted by the secretary at pre- 
cisely 2:55 P.M. except on rainy Sundays, when they 
shall be admitted as soon as the helpers specially ap- 
pointed for this purpose are ready to receive them; that 
all children shall be visited once a year by the depart- 
ment superintendent and that class teachers shall visit 
their own children after two Sundays of absence, in- 
variably making a report of such visits immediately fol- 
lowing the visit; that for every twelve teachers in the 
Junior Department there be three others who will act as 
substitutes. No teacher shall have more than a period of 
six months substituting; but other things being equal, 
each teacher should take a share of at least three months 
substituting during their term of Junior Department 
work. 


What are the most suitable lesson materials 
for Juniors? In answering this question we can- 
not do better than to quote what the British 
Lessons’ Council says concerning the principles 
that should determine the selection of Junior 
Lessons. ‘The aims are: 


(1) To lead the pupils toward a fuller idea of the 
character of God, as expressed in ways of truth, justice, 
and mercy. 

(2) To help them toward a true ideal of duty to 


THE GRADED SCHOOL 57 


God and man, expressed in love, honor, obedience, fair- 
play, and self-control, through stories of heroes whose 
acts and motives bear some relation to the experience 
of boys and girls. 

(3) To present the life, death, and resurrection of 
Jesus Christ—(a) That the pupils may see in his Per- 
son and deeds the highest embodiment, not of power 
alone, but of truth, courage, justice, love, and grace; 
(b) That they may feel the supreme attraction of his 
person and call, and desire to love and obey Him. 


The British lessons chosen in accord with this 
statement are definitely planned for children of 
nine to twelve years of age. The course covers in 
outline the main narrative portions of the Bible, 
but the proportion selected from different periods 
varies according to their relation to the interests 
and powers of the child. As a rule the material 
is concrete, positive, and in story form. It con- 
sists in the main of stories of such deeds and ex- 
periences as illustrate simple relations of obe- 
dience and love to God, and personal qualities of 
courage, truth, justice, and faithfulness. Les- 
son links are simple, logical connections, rather 
than historical, as such. The lessons are ar- 
ranged in groups, under some unifying thought. 
Reviews are suggested where necessary at the close 
of such groups. A selection of passages suitable 


58 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


for memorizing is suggested for each group. A 
series of four or five missionary lessons in each 
year presents Christian ideals in the heroic form 
a child may grasp. Suitable topics are suggested 
for Easter, Whitsunday, Temperance, and Christ- 
mas Sundays. 

Tue IntermMepiate DepartMent.—Like other 
groups of the graded school, the Intermediate 
Department must have its own organization, its 
own separate room, and its own specialized pro- 
gram. In the average school, numbers will be 
about the same as those of the Junior Depart- 
ment. If the Intermediate attendance exceeds 
fifty, difficulties in management will be likely to 
present themselves. From the standpoint of 
administration the small department is preferable. 
If the enrolment is large and such a plan is prac- 
ticable it is well to have two departments with 
sessions at different hours. 

It is of first importance that the Intermediate 
group shall be separated from the “main” school. 
Specialized services, lessons, and methods are just 
as fundamental in this group as with the younger 
pupils. If the “main” school is grouped into 
three or four departments, preferably four, Inter- 
mediate, Senior, Young People, Adult, the solu- 
tion of the problem of grading is, so far as 





THE GRADED SCHOOL 59 


organization is concerned, within sight of solution. 
All agree to-day that the Primary Department 
should be separately administered, and most agree 
that the Junior as a separate unit is highly 
desirable. As a matter of fact, the separation 
of the Intermediate from the Senior Department 
is of even greater utility, as all schools that have 
tried the plan can testify. Abolish the main 
school, is the dictum of the graded workers; de- 
partmentalize and specialize from the top to the 
bottom is, so far as organization is concerned, its 
watchword. 

Equipment required for the Intermediate 
Department includes a piano; a selection of suit- 
able music; hymn-books; a blackboard; chalks 
and duster; Bibles; hymn-stand and calico hymn- 
sheets; a table for the superintendent; books and 
pencils for expression work; some receptacle for 
holding expression and other material for use in 
each class; bookcase for books; a museum cup’ 
board; pictures in abundance; maps; offering- 
baskets or plates; vases for flowers; desk for the 
secretary; and, if possible, a table for each 
class. 

Each class should be limited in number to six 
or eight pupils. With a department of fifty this 
would give a teaching staff of seven or eight 


60 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


teachers. Besides this there should be one or two 
reserve teachers. ‘The other officers besides the 
superintendent will be an assistant superin- 
tendent, pupil president and secretary, a door- 
keeper, and a pianist. 

The department is, of course, made up of both 
boys and girls, though in this grade it is usually 
preferable to have separate classes. It is better 
to have men for the teachers of boys’ classes and 
women for the teachers of girls, but the rule 
should not be a hard and fast one. In practice it 
sometimes works out the other way about. Pupils 
as well as teachers should have a voice in the 
management of the group. Questions coming up 
for decision should be referred to committees with 
full opportunity for discussion. Intermediates 
are democratic. Let committee members be 
selected by the pupils, one from each class. It 
should be said that the superintendent of the de- 
partment is, ex officio, a member of all committees. 
Questions that have been discussed by pupils’ 
committees are such as these: How can the depart- 
ment be made really efficient and splendid in 
every way? What should be done with late 
pupils? Why should all hats and coats be taken 
off during the service? What is the best way to 
arrange the furniture of the room? How shall the 


THE GRADED SCHOOL 61 


offering be taken? What shall be the depart- 
mental motto? What kind of badges shall the 
committees have? Shall the department run a 
magazine? 

Helpers from among the pupils may be ap- 
pointed, whose duty will be to arrange the room 
in turn, put out the hymn-sheets, and make any 
other necessary preparation; all this being done 
under the guidance of the superintendent of the 
department. They will also in turn clear away 
at the close of the session. 

This is the period of early adolescence. The 
girl develops earlier and may be moved up into 
the Senior Department a year sooner than the 
boy. The stirrings of sex, and all that these 
imply, remain for the most part comparatively 
quiescent during the Intermediate period. Boys 
and girls are not nearly so much interested in one 
another as they will become later on. 

The secret of success lies largely in the choice 
of the right person as superintendent of the de- 
partment. ‘The leader may be of either sex, but 
there must be a personality at the head. The 
leader must not be an autocrat, for there is much 
to learn both from teachers and pupils. As in 
the Junior Department the leader must be a 
teacher. ‘The Intermediate pupil is ready and 


62 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


willing to be taught. He is still very much of a 
school-boy and will remain so while in this depart- 
ment. The leader, therefore, must be a good 
teacher. Indeed, he must hold his own with 
the pupils’ day-school teachers. And we must 
not ignore the fact that in these days boys and 
girls in both elementary and secondary schools 
are better taught than they were of yore. The 
Intermediate pupil recognizes the teacher who, in 
the words of the secondary school-boy, “‘gets the 
stuff across.” 

But the Intermediate superintendent must be 
more than a teacher, for religion cannot be taught 
as a subject. Religion cannot be separated from 
life—physical life, mental life, emotional life, and 
social life. Religion is not acquired by memoriz- 
ing the catechism or texts of Scripture. The 
teacher who endeavors to bring religious teach- 
ing to the boy and girl must be conversant with 
their weekly pursuits, their interests and hobbies, 
and their temptations. Otherwise he will make 
little contact with their need, and his teaching will 
be abstract, something apart from life. We must 
educate the whole boy physically, mentally, and 
morally. 

Intermediate Department problems are quite 





THE GRADED SCHOOL 63 


as numerous and difficult as those of the Primary 
and Junior Departments. A departmental train- 
ing class or workers’ conference is just as essential 
here as in the elementary departments. There 
are many advantages in having a compulsory 
training class. 

The Intermediate period is the golden op- 
portunity for continuing education in Bible and 
general religious knowledge. Interest in history 
is now developing strongly. Stories of great 
heroes and groups of heroes, explorers, and mis- 
sionaries make the strongest appeal at this age. 
Therefore extra-biblical material may be wisely 
introduced into the courses of study, but the 
heroes of the Bible and the Hero of heroes should 
have a central place. 

Loyalty is the crux of moral character in this 
age, and lesson material that appeals to loyalty 
should be frequently presented and opportunities 
for its expression should be provided. 

Week-day activities play a large part in suc- 
cessful work with Intermediate and Senior pupils. 
It is largely owing to a lack of these activities 
that the older pupil is not retained. When pos- 
sible the lessons and the week activities should be 
related to each other. ‘The British Lessons Coun- 


64 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


cil states that their aim is to present during the 
Intermediate years: 


(1) The great virtues such as loyalty, chivalry, moral 
heroism, forgiveness, purity, etc., as embodied in those 
pre-Christian characters who prepared the way for 
Christ, in whom all the heroic qualities they revealed 
were seen to perfection. 

(2) Jesus as the Hero of heroes, who by his life of 
love, service, and self-sacrifice met and overcame the 
power of evil, inspiring his followers through the ages 
to exhibit the fruits of his spirit in their lives. 


SENIOR, YOUNG PEOPLE’s, AND ADULT DEPaRT- 
MENTS.—In England these departments are some- 
times referred to as Lower Senior, Upper Senior, 
and Adult. Each age period is clearly marked 
psychologically, though there may be some dif- 
ference of opinion as to the exact ages. Group- 
ing cannot be based upon the calendar in any 
exact way; calendar age is always approximate 
only. 

There are no cut-and-dried plans or methods 
to be prescribed for these departments. Much 
depends upon available facilities and leaders. 
One may speak more or less dogmatically with 
reference to the form of organization in the Begin- 
ners’, Primary, and Junior Departments, and 





THE GRADED SCHOOL 65 


even in the Intermediate Department, but in the 
more advanced departments allowance must be 
made for more or less variation. A considerable 
degree of self-government is advisable. 

The purpose of the Young People’s Depart- 
ment has been well stated by one writer as follows: 


The central aim of this department is to create a 
comradeship of young men and women who are seeking 
to know Christ, trying to interpret his Gospel in their 
own lives, and applying its teaching to the problems of 
their generation. We want to help them to discover 
what the Kingdom of God means and how it can be 
established here. We want to help them to become real 
citizens, both national and international, to understand 
the problems and needs of their time, and to realize 
their own responsibilities. 


In the report of a commission recently issued 
by the united board of Sunday-school organiza- 
tions of Great Britain the aim is stated as 
follows: ‘The department exists to help young 
people to understand all the glorious possibilities 
of the Christian life which is God-centered and 
spent in the service of others; of a life that is rich 
and full because it is directed to the positive end 
of service and ruled by passionate love for Christ. 
Fullness of life in Christ, the achievement of 
Christian personality ;—that, on behalf of each of 


66 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


its members, is the aim of the department.” 

It will be realized that the choice of leaders for 
these departmental groups must be made with 
extreme care. It probably may be true that m 
most churches there is a limited choice, for real 
leaders of seniors and young people are few and 
far between. ‘To be successful the leader must be 
a man of big and broad sympathies. He must 
be acceptable to the group itself; one might 
safely say he ought to be nominated by them, for 
democracy must prevail here or the work will fail. 
He must be more than a “good” man, for there 
are many good men who are wholly incompetent 
for work of this sort. 

Athletics and outdoor sports are imperative if 
youth is to be helped to fight the moral battles of 
hfe successfully, and it is surely best that week- 
day activities should be carried on at least under 
the supervision of those who lead on Sunday. 
The physical and the spiritual are closely co- 
ordinated; it is difficult to differentiate them. 

The church must recognize that the call for a 
recreational and social life is a deeper thing than 
a mere seeking after pleasure. It is the call of 
the blood; it is the call of sex; and it must find 
expression in physical activity and social inter- 





THE GRADED SCHOOL 67 


course or it will give vent to itself in immoral 
practices. Here is the church’s opportunity to 
save. ‘Time will come when she will have men 
especially trained for this job, just as specially 
trained as ministers are trained for preaching. 
The church must touch community conditions 
and make wholesome provision for its need. But 
the problem is the problem of leadership. Any 
man suitable for such work should be freed from 
other calls and enabled to give himself whole- 
heartedly to the service of youth. It is obvious, 
therefore, that he should be a young man, vigor- 
ous and strong, intellectually alive, emotionally 
on fire with love for youth. He should be free 
from the love of dominating, willing to learn from 
those he leads, suspicious of mere sentimental 
plety—a genuine man, wholesome, sane, and 
human. 

The right leader for the girls must in general 
be of the same sort. If the perfect leader cannot 
be found, the church must look out for one who 
comes as nearly as possible to the ideal. 

It would be well if every leader in charge of 
a department in the modern Sunday-school were 
largely exempt from other church and social 
duties in order that he or she might be able to 


68 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


specialize, for the work is more or less an all-the- 
week job. Once-a-week will never succeed, cer- 
tainly not in these upper grades. 

There are many in the churches who are “inter- 
ested in religious education,” but who are not suffi- 
ciently interestéd to give much time to it. They 
are quite ready, if some one else will do the spade 
work, to give a talk or an address, but few are will- 
ing, week in and week out, to keep patient with the 
adolescents’ crude humor, their sometimes rough 
horseplay, and frequent breaches of social eti- 
quette. There are not many Christians good 
enough to sacrifice their social functions, their 
warm fireside, and the gratification of their liter- 
ary, musical, or recreational tastes to be real pals 
to youth; this is where the church is failing. 
Taking up the cross is more than a mere question 
of attending church, giving money to the poor, or 
subscribing to foreign missions. It means and 
must more and more mean a sacrificing of time 
and comfort for the sake of providing needed 
rendezvous and still more needed friendship for 
boys and girls just embarking upon, or midway 
across, the tempestuous sea of adolescence. 

All Sunday-schools should have a coédrdinated 
course of lessons throughout the departments. 
Lesson courses should be graded. If we make 


THE GRADED SCHOOL 69 


reference once again to the aims of the British 
Lessons Council we shall find them stated for these 


departments as follows: 


It is felt that for these departments lessons and topics 
must be chosen on a different principle from that which 
operates in the earlier grades. In the Junior and In- 
termediate school the Old and New Testaments are 
studied in lessons, graded to meet the needs of the 
children at different ages, so as to fill in with ever fuller 
detail their knowledge of the biblical history and teach- 
ing. But the years which carry our young people to the 
verge of manhood and womanhood bring new conditions, 
questions, and difficulties. It is also the time at which 
we are seeking with renewed earnestness to promote 
or confirm their allegiance to Jesus Christ, and to 
equip them as intelligent servants of the Kingdom of 
God. 

Instruction, therefore, ought to be given, their inter- 
est stimulated, and their questions met on subjects, the 
ground of which is ever in the Scriptures, but which can 
only be presented by taking wider surveys of biblical 
truth than is possible in the consecutive treatment of 
individual books or narratives. 

It seems proper that at this time lessons should be 
given in such subjects as: the Bible as a whole, and the 
right method of approaching it; the character and work 
of our Lord, and the implications that lie in them for 
faith and conduct; the nature, privileges, and obligations 


70 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


of the church He founded, and its missionary task in 
the world; the Christian life with its personal and social 
duties; the great fundamental truths, drawn from the 
word of God, which are the living faith and strength 
of the church. 


In both the lower and upper Senior Depart- 
ment there is a fine opportunity for self-teaching. 
If the department can be inspired really to set 
itself to work, much will be accomplished. 

The commission referred to above, which has 
published its findings under the title of ‘‘Princi- 
ples of Senior Work,” makes some interesting 
suggestions which are worth summarizing here. 
The members of the commission point out that the 
conception of Christian life which in the past has 
been considered as something pertaining to the 
spirit only is too narrow an interpretation, and 
they urge that the aim should be the salvation of 
the whole man, spirit, mind, and body. “We 
must not,” they say, ‘attempt to teach the Chris- 
tian faith apart from its bearings upon life as a 
complete whole. The incarnation forbids us to 
regard the human body as a mere prison-house of 
the soul and a drag upon the spirit in its ascent 
to God.” Working on this basis they demand an 
all-round program. ‘They recommend organizing 
on comradeship lines with local self-government. 


THE GRADED SCHOOL 71 


They point out the fact that it is impossible to 
teach personality, that the learner cannot be a 
mere passive recipient of truth. The Senior De- 
partments down to their last detail should give 
opportunity for the self-expression of members. 
The session of the department must be more than 
a mere meeting; it must be a fellowship, a fellow- 
ship of service. The report says, “The real glory 
of a department is not in the number on the books 
or actually attending the session, but in the 
number it has set to work.” 

As far as method is concerned the commission 
emphasizes the need of discussion. The long 
lesson is to be a thing of the past. The aim is 
to draw out the diffident pupil. The general plan 
of group discussion is recommended. The method 
of the Senior Department must not be borrowed 
from the pulpit. 

The Senior Departments offer the final op- 
portunity for the training of the boys and girls 
in service before the responsibilities of adult life 
are upon them. Expressional activities, are quite 
as important in these departments as in those for 
younger pupils. 

One of the advantages of having the Senior 
Department’s meeting at a different hour from 
the remainder of the school is that members may 


72 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


be employed in the school itself as teachers, secre- 
taries, door-keepers, and librarians. 

Here are some forms of service that have been 
tried in one school or another. One Senior De- 
partment organized and carried on a missionary 
exhibition. The girls of another organized a 
créche where mothers could leave their young 
children while attending church and communion 
service. The same group gave relief to other 
mothers by taking charge of the children for cer- 
tain periods in homes where the mothers needed 
such relief. One scout troop organized a chair 
brigade which made church-going possible for 
some elderly people. One Senior Department 
undertook the care of the gardens and ground sur- 
rounding their church premises. The secretary 
of another church used the Senior Department 
to help him in conducting church correspondence. 
Such work helps to bring the boys into closer 
relationship to the church. Concerts and enter- 
tainments may be given in hospitals, infirmaries, 
cripples’ homes, and old people’s homes. Doing 
things is better than talking things. It is better 
to live the gospel than merely to preach it. 


I’d rather see a sermon 


Than hear one any day. 


THE GRADED SCHOOL 13 


I’d rather one would talk with me, 
Than merely tell the way. 


Methods of social service should often be a 
topic of discussion in the Senior Departments. 
“My class will listen to me, but I cannot get 
them to do anything,” is the lament of many a 
Senior teacher. The explanation in many cases 
is to be found in the teacher’s method. Too 
often there is entire failure to encourage sugges- 
tions by members of class or department, to 
stimulate initiative, and to create a sense of re- 
sponsibility on the part of the pupils themselves. 
A weekly workers’ conference of Senior teachers 
meeting at the same time as the training classes 
of the other departments, is a valuable acquisition 
to department plans. 

THe Parents’ DepartMent.—The Sunday- 
school will never reach its zenith until there is 
closer codperation between school and home. 
There must be frequent opportunities for the 
superintendents of departments to explain their 
aim and their method to parents; opportunities 
also for parents to report the effect of the teach- 
ing upon the children. Conferences between 
teachers and parents will help to solve problems 
of sex teaching. ‘This is particularly true for the 


"4 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


intermediate and senior grades. Then there is 
the question of social activities, dancing, and 
other debatable forms of recreation which need 
ventilating. If parents are brought into the dis- 
cussion of plans and methods they may be the 
more readily interested in financing scouts, brig- 
ades, clubs, and the like. Codperation is more 
than desirable; it is imperative. 

But beside all this the church might do much 
more than she is doing in helping parents to train 
their children better. The church is doing much 
to make parents feel their responsibility, but she 
is not giving enough assistance to help them ade- 
quately to discharge these responsibilities; she is 
perhaps dealing too much with abstract ideas and 
not giving enough concrete help. ‘True, the 
church is a worshiping institution, but it is surely 
a teaching institution also, and there is no sub- 
ject that needs illumination more than that of 
child nature and child nurture. 

Generally speaking, parents want to do their 
best for their children and are willing to seize op- 
portunities offered to help them in their task. 
Mother instinct will do much; but instinct con- 
verted into clear and intelligent insight will do 
more. 

Every plan made to bring the church and home 


THE GRADED SCHOOL 75 


into closer codperation should be seriously con- 
sidered. We have already had something to say 
on the value of the Cradle Roll. Another form 
of organization that has possibilities of eminent 
service is the Parents’ Department. In some 
churches this department should be separately 
organized. In the majority of instances the 
preferable plan will be the organization of 
parents’ classes within the Adult Department. 
Whether department or class, it may or may 
not meet on Sunday. Some groups meet at 
an entirely different time. Conferences and dis- 
cussions on various aspects of child welfare and 
child training may be held, with occasional 
lectures; or classes may study some of the ex- 
cellent text-books now available. The study- 
circle group should not be large if the best 
results are to be obtained. Groups should not con- 
sist of more than twenty; half that number would 
be better. 

In some cases members of the class will bring 
books on child nature and child nurture for sup- 
plementary reading, and these can be kept cir- 
culating among members. A child-study library 
is a valuable acquisition. These departments and 
classes have helped many parents to find the 
solution of home problems that would otherwise 


46 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


have been insuperable for them, and the general 
result has been a quickened interest in child life, 
an improvement in methods of discipline, an ap- 
preciation of the value of a wholesome home at- 
mosphere, and a closer codperation between the 
school, the church, and the home. 

Much of the success of this department depends 
on wise guidance in choosing courses. Abstract 
subjects should be avoided. Parents desire help 
on concrete problems. ‘There are an unlimited 
number of home problems that may be profitably 
discussed. Parents will talk about their children 
and gladly listen to the experiences of others. 

The following series of topics was discussed 
during a winter session in one Parent’s De- 
partment: 


Nurture by atmosphere: how to develop right feeling; 
training the child in truthfulness, honesty, and obe- 
dience; children’s rights; learning by indirection; at- 
mosphere in the home, school, and community; 
citizenship. 

Nurture by food: the child’s need of food, light, sun- 
shine, and exercise; the child mind and heart hunger; 
emotions and their culture, fear and flight; anger and 
resistance; ownership and acquisition; curiosity and in- 
vestigation. 

Nurture by exercise: the value of activity; the rest- 


— 


THE GRADED SCHOOL T7 


less child; the playful child; the quiet child; the mean- 
ing of play; the child that does not play. 


As a matter of fact this outline program led 
into all sorts of interesting subjects. Punish- 
ment and discipline proved to be ever recurring 
topics, and this gave opportunity for discussing a 
variety of questions. Some of them may be of 
general interest. What is the relation of atmos- 
phere to punishment? Should children always 
obey? What rights has a child? How serious 
are children’s lies? Their origin? What is the 
most effective treatment? How should children’s 
questions about God be answered? How may 
the child’s curiosity about sex be satisfied in 
wholesome, morally helpful ways? 

In this instance the interest in the topics 
under consideration was so great that three times 
the group appointed a mid-week meeting to con- 
tinue the discussion. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Bernard, Winifred E., “The Beginners’ Department,” 
National Sunday-School Union (London), 1928. 

Clover, Muriel Frankham, “Child Study Notes for the 
Beginners’ Leader,’ Pilgrim Press (London), 1925. 

Clover, Muriel Frankham, “The Beginners’ Service,” 
Pilgrim Press (London), 1925. 


"8 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


Johnston, Ethel Archibald, “The Primary Department: 
Its Principles and Methods,’ National Sunday-School 
Union (London), 1924. 

Wilson, Dorothy F., “The Junior Department of the 
Sunday-School: A Practical Handbook,” National 
Sunday-School Union (London), 1921. 

Harris, H. H., “Leaders of Youth,’ Methodist Book 
Concern, 1922. 

Harris, H. H., “The Organization and Administration 
of the Intermediate Department,” Teacher Training 
Publishing Association, 1924, 

Thompson, James V., “Handbook for Workers with 
Young People,’ Abingdon Press, 1922. 

Barclay, Wade Crawford, “The Organization and Ad- 
ministration of the Adult Department,” Caxton Press, 
1925. 

Stevenson, James W., “The Parents’ Department: The 
Need and the Plan,” Pilgrim Press (London), 1921. 


CHAPTER V 
ATMOSPHERE 


Ir is ~ gnificant that the idea of the Sunday- 
school session as a place of worship is only begin- 
ning to be realized. It is both well and necessary 
that a basis for faith should be laid in knowledge, 
but we must not be content with this alone. 
Young people must not only know about God; 
they must know God and be able to think of him 
and to speak of him as one whom their hearts con- 
sciously realize. ‘T'o know God after this manner 
is to be worshipful. ‘To behold the beauty of the 
Lord is to add to faith, reverence. ‘This addition 
to faith, children make naively and naturally. 
The child can be led to feel intensely the wonder 
of the divine presence all about him. 

An irreverent atmosphere is much more dan- 
gerous for a child than for an adult. The adult 
does not so readily respond to stimulus; for him 
familiarity has taken off the keen edge of desire. 
The child is all on fire for new knowledge, new 


feelings, new experiences; and he attends with 
79 


80 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


great mental alertness. He wants to learn and 
moreover to put into action the knowledge that 
he has gained; to make it a part of himself. 

If church leaders could but realize the injury 
that a badly conducted Sunday-school or kindred 
organization can do to the subconscious char- 
acter of the child, they would stand aghast at 
their delinquency. In fact I do not hesitate to say 
that the children of many Sunday-schools would 
be better off in the street, for the reverence and 
order that we look for in church we do not expect 
to find in the street. ‘The Sunday-school is con- 
nected with and for the most part meets upon 
church premises. The church stands for wor- 
ship, for reverence; but the street, the movie 
theater, even the day school, each has its own 
particular atmosphere and must necessarily be 
in a different category from the church. The 
public school does not tolerate carelessness or 
flippancy. The work of the Sunday-school and 
of other kindred agencies of the church must be 
organized and conducted in such a manner as 
will nurture rather than repress the highest and 
holiest impulses of the child’s soul. Good motive 
on the part of those who are responsible is not 
enough; there must be efficiency in operation as 
well as purity of purpose. A reverent atmos- 


ATMOSPHERE 81 


phere is absolutely essential to Sunday-school 
work. 

But what is atmosphere? Atmosphere is like 
the air that the child breathes, as contrasted with 
the food that he eats. He thrives just as much 
upon what he unconsciously inhales as upon that 
with which he is consciously fed. Since atmos- 
phere is something felt, rather than known, it 
cannot be adequately described. It is not order 
only, nor is it silence. It is not something forced 
or mechanical. It is only present when there is 
spontaneity, freedom, and yet unity. It arises 
out of environment, setting, personality, pres- 
tige, music, beauty. ‘The very walls of the room, 
the color-scheme, the voice of the leader, the vest- 
ment, the ritual or the lack of ritual—all foster 
it; but the greatest of all is the personality of 
the leader. 

To be very practical let us consider some of 
the most commonplace hindrances to a right at- 
mosphere. We may perhaps divide them into 
groups: physical hindrances, gradation hin- 
drances, management hindrances, indifferent 
music, and personal hindrances. 

PuysicaL Hinprances.—Pupils must be com- 
fortable. If the room is too hot or too cold, if 
it is badly ventilated or dingy, if the furniture 


82 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


is misplaced or decrepit, if there is no cloak-room 
and the children and teachers have to sit with 
coats and wraps on, the possibility of right at- 
mosphere is minimized from the very beginning. 
Fresh air, warmth, brightness, fitness, beauty, all 
help to produce what is wanted. A well fur- 
nished room is most remarkable for what is left 
out. I have known Primary Departments that 
were more like lumber-rooms than places of wor- 
ship. In our churches we see to it that atten- 
tion is given to the last details of cleanliness, tem- 
perature, and arrangement of proceedings. In 
the auditorium care is usually taken that every- 
thing makes for dignity. But in the children’s 
rooms “evil is wrought for want of thought.” 

Benches are of course utterly unsuitable. 
Chairs should be provided; and the chairs should 
fit the children. Primary chairs should be 
eleven, twelve, and thirteen inches in_ height; 
junior chairs thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen 
inches; intermediate chairs fifteen, sixteen, and 
seventeen inches. 

Separate class-rooms may become a hindrance 
to the desired atmosphere. I have in mind a cer- 
tain school rather above the average in size, with 
an average attendance in excess of three hun- 
dred. It is attached to a fairly wealthy congre- 


ee ee ee ee 


ATMOSPHERE 83 


gation. Here is the making of an ideal school 
so far as premises and equipment are concerned. 
It makes some pretense of grading. It likes to 
be considered a first-class Sunday-school and is 
rightly proud of its past history. But its lead- 
ers are failing to get the first glimmerings of the 
meaning of atmosphere. I visited the Junior 
Department. There were about 140 pupils. 
The room was inconveniently arranged. The 
children were restless. The organ was out of 
tune. The printed hymn-sheets were nearly in- 
visible. Pupils came in late, one as much as 
twenty-five minutes; and there were continual in- 
terruptions from beginning to end of the pro- 
gram. On the top floor of the building there 
was a series of class-rooms, and pupils and teach- 
ers scampered up and down a long corridor and a 
flight of stairs to get to and from these. The 
disorder and chaos that this caused simply made 
the creation of right atmosphere out of the ques- 
tion. 

Class-rooms attached to Primary, Junior, or 
Intermediate Departments are likely to be found 
a greater hindrance than a help. As we have 
shown elsewhere the modern Sunday-school is de- 
centralized into moderately sized groups, and if 
the rooms are arranged properly there is little 


84 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


need for class-rooms. These remarks do not ap- 
ply to the Senior and Young People’s Depart- 
ments, but for the Primary and Junior and 
Intermediate Departments class-rooms are a 
detriment rather than a benefit. 

In this connection, surely, the purpose of the 
opening service has ever been misunderstood. 
The average opening exercise in the Sunday- 
school lacks aim and purpose, but in the decen- 
tralized school the hymn, the prayers, the 
Scripture reading, the music, the pianist, the 
supplemental talks, the leader, all in turn help 
to provide the right setting for worship and also 
a spirit of united fellowship for the considera- 
tion of the lesson. 

It would seem not only unnecessary but unwise 
to disturb this atmosphere by the bustle of de- 
parture to class-rooms with the many distractions 
that attend such a change of environment. It is 
found in practice that if classes are properly ar- 
ranged in the department and the right atmos- 
phere secured the groups will not in the least 
interfere with one another during the lesson-time. 

In the Sunday-school of to-morrow every sec- 
tion will meet in its own room, conduct its own 
opening and closing service, teach its own lessons, 
select its own hymns, pray its own prayers, and 


ATMOSPHERE 85 


create its own atmosphere. When, upon occa- 
sion, it is desirable that all the departments as- 
semble together, even the act of assembling will 
be arranged with the greatest care, and carried 
out with dignity. 

From the point of view of creating right at- 
mosphere a cloak-room is indispensable. Here 
the assembling pupils may move about, meet with 
one another and with their teachers, and remove 
their cloaks. The cloak-room affords a splendid 
opportunity for conversation between teacher and 
pupil, and this intercourse is useful in fostering 
acquaintanceship. The few minutes spent there 
before the opening of the school may do more to 
prepare for the desired atmosphere than any other 
one thing. In the absence of more adequate ac- 
commodation the lack of cloak-room can some- 
times be overcome by curtaining off one end of the 
room. ‘The children may gather behind this cur- 
tain and remove their wraps as in an ordinary 
fully equipped cloak-room. 

The departmental room needs to be carefully 
arranged. Without crowding, everything should 
be as near together as conveniently possible. The 
chairs may be arranged in semicircles, so that no 
child will be a great distance from either teacher 
or leader. The blackboard, pictures, piano, 


86 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


superintendent’s table, visitors’ chairs, should all 
be placed in such a way as to make for the comfort 
of the whole department. ‘There should be little 
need of shifting about during the session. If 
careful preparation is made, no other furniture 
than the teachers’ chairs need be moved. There 
should be no platform; the leader should be on the 
same floor-level as the children. This obtains 
throughout all the departments. Ugly platforms 
and dilapidated reading-desks must be eliminated. 
Leaders are finding that the old idea that a plat- 
form is a necessity in a departmental room is al- 
together a fallacy. Ina school I visited the other 
day the face of the leader, because of the shining 
light behind him, could not be seen. The right 
relationship between leader and pupil will be 
secured by the glance of the eye, the look on the 
face, and the emotional expression. Here is 
where personality gets its opportunity. 

Attention to detail of every sort is of the first 
importance. Leaders should give much thought 
to the careful arrangement of the room and should 
not be afraid to experiment. 

GrapaTION Hinprances.—The splendid effort 
made in many a Primary Department is defeated 
because there is no Beginners’ Department. 
Four- or five-year-old children in a Primary De- 


ATMOSPHERE 87 


partment will handicap the best effort of the best 
leader. The same thing is true of nine-year-olds 
in a Primary Department. Grade closely. 

The children should be near the leader. In the 
Beginners’ Department the teacher and the child 
should be very close together. I have found many 
Primary Departments handicapped because their 
leaders have not learned the principle referred to 
elsewhere in this book, that physical nearness is 
essential to mental nearness. With the young 
child this principle is imperative. With adults 
it obtains, but, of course, not nearly to the same 
extent. In a full church every adult will be able 
to follow the discourse of the preacher and pos- 
sibly be interested. But if the congregation con- 
sisted of beginners, how many of them would, or 
rather could, listen? He who teaches little chil- 
dren—beginners, primaries, juniors, and, indeed, 
even intermediates—must learn that to bring 
about the best results the teaching must be done 
in small groups and not in masses. To arrange 
the room, therefore, so that the leader is separated 
very considerably from at least half the pupils is 
to create difficulty. Graded school workers have 
been trying experiments for years with the object 
of discovering the limit of numbers with which the 
best work can be done in a department, and many 


88 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


have come to the conclusion that a Primary or 
Junior Department can do its best work if num- 
bers do not exceed fifty. I saw recently a Pri- 
mary Department numbering 120 children. Wise 
leadership would separate that department into 
two, each meeting if necessary at different hours 
with, of course, a different leader, pianist, and 
staff of teachers. Any one who has ever seen a 
large gathering of children knows how difficult it 
is to get what Froebel calls “‘altogetherness,” that 
which is the imperative antecedent of atmosphere. 
The principle that departments must be strictly 
limited in size rests upon a thoroughly sound basis. 
Sunday-school problems will never be solved with 
present accommodation. We must accustom our- 
selves and our schools to the continuous use of 
premises so that each department may succeed in 
securing the atmosphere that makes for genuine 
success. 

One child must not be allowed to spoil a depart- 
ment; the greatest good for the greatest number 
should be the principle of the leader. ‘There 
should be no hesitation, therefore, in dealing with 
a child who is making difficulty. Sometimes, for 
example, a child who is slightly subnormal men- 
tally may be welcomed in the school with the re- 
sult that his presence is of no benefit to the child 


ATMOSPHERE 89 


himself and harmful to the other pupils. But ex- 
perience shows that such children vary greatly in 
conduct. On some days they are perfectly good, 
but on other days almost uncontrollable. Such 
a child should be put in a class by himself, and this 
class should be placed where, if necessary, the 
child may be quickly removed from the depart- 
ment with as little interruption as possible. Ex- 
ceptional children must have exceptional treat- 
ment, and generally that treatment should be 
individual—one child, one teacher. 

ADMINISTRATIVE Huinprances.—The _ early 
pupil may be a more serious hindrance to atmos- 
phere than the one who is late. Whatever is our 
opinion of the treatment of late pupils, there can 
only be one on the question of the early pupil. 
We must not allow early arrivals to assemble in 
the room where the department will meet for wor- 
ship; some kind of annex or waiting-room is in- 
dispensable. If on arrival early pupils are ad- 
mitted into the departmental room, associations 
are almost certain to be formed which will make 
a worshiping atmosphere extremely difficult to ob- 
tain. Except in very bad weather it is best to 
keep the doors, even of the cloak-room, closed un- 
til about ten minutes before the time of commence- 
ment. 


90 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


When we speak of the late pupil we enter the 
realm of controversy. Many Sunday-school lead- 
ers with big hearts say they will never turn a pupil 
away. I was visiting a department not long ago 
where late pupils continued to arrive as much as 
thirty-five minutes after the school had begun. 
From the point of view of atmosphere such a state 
of affairs is deplorable. Any one who has ever 
been the chairman of a committee, or the teacher 
of a group of students, knows that a new arrival 
alters the psychology of the group. The new- 
comer breaks the unity of the whole, and the 
leader naturally feels that he must begin all over 
again. ‘There should be no late arrivals. It 
takes a resolute man or woman to make a rule like 
this, and it will take firmness to enforce it. Once 
the session begins it should be protected from 
every interruption. We must keep in mind that 
the reading of Scripture or the singing of hymns 
is just as much an act of worship as is a period 
of silence or a prayer. In my own school the ex- 
perience is that so long as we allowed late pupils 
we had them, but once we refused to permit them 
the difficulty was overcome. It took some visit- 
ing and some persistence, but we succeeded. I 
know a school which meets at a quarter to two, 
although the morning service is not over until 


ATMOSPHERE 94 


half-past twelve. These hours do not leave time 
for pupil or teacher to get back to school without 
being late. The cure for this is, of course, to 
change the hour. 

What has been said goes to show the need for 
careful preparation for each session. Indeed the 
training class, or workers’ conference, is indis- 
pensable if atmosphere is to be secured. In the 
graded school the preparation class has a wide 
range of subjects for discussion. In days gone 
by this class existed for Bible study and little else. 
In the graded school training class every difficulty 
of organization is considered. Careful thought is 
given to cloak-room problems, ventilation prob- 
lems, the arrangement of the room, grading of 
pupils, the early and the late pupil, the problem 
of interruptions, the music for the session, and 
sundry though seemingly unimportant details that 
make or mar the success of department administra- 
tion. The departmental training class is funda- 
mental. Experience teaches us that where it is 
dispensed with atmosphere is lost and disintegra- 
tion sets in. 

An indifferently arranged order of service has 
often been responsible for a disappointing session. 
The hymns must be chosen with the utmost care 
and only after the lesson for the day has been well 


92 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


thought out. Hymns, prayers, supplementary 
lesson, Scripture reading, quiet music, pictures, 
everything should be selected so that the whole 
service will become a unit of harmonious thought 
and expression. 

Those who manage the Sunday-school must 
guard against interruptions in the service. The 
Sunday-school superintendent in the graded school 
is a protector whose business it is to see that every 
department gets an uninterrupted opportunity 
for doing its work properly. This means, first 
of all, doorkeepers. The doorkeeper may also be 
the secretary or the assistant leader, or possibly 
some one especially selected, but he should be there 
early and late and all the time. He must see to it 
that the department is guarded not only from 
casual visitors but from officious officials. I have 
known superintendents themselves who made more 
disorder than they quelled. The bustling busy- 
body who does not appreciate the need or the 
meaning of atmosphere, the minister who uses the 
Sunday-school session as a time of visiting with 
teachers or pupils, who presumes that his official 
position gives him the right to interrupt at any 
time, must be tactfully but firmly dealt with. 
He sees to it that when he is officiating in the pul- 
pit interruptions are guarded against, and he 


ATMOSPHERE 93 


ought to have the same consideration for teachers 
and pupils. 

Visitors must be especially provided for. They 
should not be permitted to go from department to 
department or to move about the room. They 
should do nothing that will attract the attention 
of the pupils while at their work or worship. I 
once noted in a Primary Department six different 
interruptions sufficiently great to break the con- 
nection in the order of service. 

Over-zealous secretaries must be forestalled. 
Records, as has been suggested, should all be at- 
tended to in the secretaries’ office. The collec- 
tion of these need have no place in the service, but 
absent pupils, particularly those who are ill, may 
be referred to and remembered. ‘The utmost care 
should be taken that all interruptions are elimi- 
nated and that everything which would disturb in 
the least degree the reverence and order of the 
service is avoided. 

Very seldom should the whole school be gathered 
together for an address by an outsider. There 
is a place for the united gathering, a time when 
fathers and mothers and children meet like a big 
family together, but such gatherings should be in- 
frequent. When missionaries (and these ought 
always to be welcome in the Sunday-school) are 


94 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


invited, they should come prepared to speak to 
one of the departments at a time. We have seen 
in previous chapters that it is well nigh impos- 
sible to address children of all grades at the same 
moment. For his own sake as well as for the sake 
of his cause, the missionary ought to be ready and 
willing to specialize and make his message suitable 
to the grade. 

Indifferent music should beeliminated. Poetry, 
not doggerel, should be used for the hymns. 
A most careful selection of the latter should be 
made, and no one hymn should be used too fre- 
quently. Too familiar hymns are apt to make 
for levity. If the children once get into the habit 
of humming the familiar music, atmosphere will 
be dispersed. One chord is usually enough to 
start a well known hymn. On the other hand the 
playing over of unfamiliar hymns will be listened 
to eagerly and will help the children to learn them. 

PrrsonaL Hrnprances.—What shall we say of 
the teacher who is ever attempting to impose moral 
lessons upon his pupils? Some teachers cannot 
trust the child to make his own deductions; instead 
of leading the child to think, they try to think for 
him. Always pointing morals, they take every 
opportunity of preaching little sermons and thus 
boring their pupils into listlessness. If the child 


ATMOSPHERE 95 


thinks we are trying to teach him moral lessons he 
becomes suspicious. Be content, therefore, with 
simply leaving the ideal before his mind; the more 
indirectly this is done the more certainly will he 
receive it uncritically. 

And what shall we say of the superintendent or 
departmental leader who is fussy and noisy, who 
comes without careful preparation and attempts 
to make up in busyness for lack of thoroughness? 
Like parent, like child; like leader, like school. 
Any lack of self-control on the part of the leader 
is fatal. The quiet tone, the subdued though not 
dull manner, quiet freedom from haste, these will 
soon create in a department such seriousness as 
may be desirable. But there must be codperation 
in this on the part of the helpers. Teachers who 
are indifferent, who forget themselves because of 
their interest in their fellow-teachers, who have not 
risen to the importance of the occasion and are 
unacquainted with the sensitive suggestibility of 
the group, will be hindrances rather than helps. 
These are all matters that must be discussed at 
preparation class. The Sunday session ought to 
be the supreme effort of the week so far as the 
religious life of the children is concerned. Con- 
sequently there must be no haste, and almost never 
must there be prohibition. 


96 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


If the administration of the Sunday-school rep- 
resents skill, there will be little occasion for so- 
called ‘“‘discipline.” Busy children are good 
children. Suitable rooms and furniture, good 
ventilation, freedom from interruption, class grad- 
ing and the rest, if they materialize, will prove 
that there is little need for prohibition and repri- 
mands. ‘This is not merely a counsel of perfec- 
tion. There are many schools which have proved 
the efficacy of these plans. 

Somebody says, “Personality makes the pro- 
foundest appeal to man’s emotions that the history 
of the world affords.” The child is a being of in- 
finite sensibility and impressionability and will 
unvaryingly respond to the influence of personal’ 
ity. 

Strive to make the environment right—I mean 
both the physical and the personal environment— 
and trust the children to make the responses. 
Much the biggest part of education consists in 
the nurture of right feelings, for feeling is the 
pioneer of knowledge. 

One can scarcely reckon the number of times it 
has been stated that the Sunday-school can never 
be as successful as the day-school because in the 
former there is no right “‘to enforce discipline.” 
There should be no need to enforce discipline. 


ATMOSPHERE 97 


The kind of “discipline” makes the difference be- 
tween the estimable and the indifferently good 
Sunday-school. The teacher who understands 
the child rarely needs to use force or fear. Pos- 
sibly if he understood more perfectly, even the 
rare occasions might be eliminated. The sym- 
pathetic teacher follows the line of interest; he 
knows that discipline is not secured by punish- 
ment but rather by diversion. By careful organi- 
zation and management, by keeping the child 
busy, by appealing to his dominant interests, by 
giving him a voice in the affairs of the depart- 
ment, he draws the child rather than forces him. 

It was the great schoolmaster, Comenius, who 
as early as the seventeenth century aptly com- 
pared the parent or teacher using force to a 
musician striking with his fist a violin that is 
badly out of tune instead of using his hands and 
ears to bring it to correct pitch. 

Obedience in itself is neither good nor bad; 
it is neither moral nor immoral; it depends on 
whom or what we obey. It is willing obedience 
that matters ; it is the ethical principle at the root 
of obedience that is the chief thing. ‘Therefore 
it is better to persuade than to compel. We must 
fight that which is low in the child by fostering 
that which is high. ‘The aim is not parental con- 


98 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


trol, but self-control on the part of the child. 
We develop this not by suppression, not by out- 
ward force, but by inward desire, not by bribe, 
but by inspiration and persuasion, not by lessons 
so much as by atmosphere. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Du Bois, Patterson, “The Natural Way in Moral 
Training,’ Revell, 1903. 


. Hartshorne, Hugh, “Worship in the Sunday School,’ 


Teachers’ College, Columbia University, 1913. 
Miller, H. Crichton, “The New Psychology and the 
Teacher,” Jarrolds (London), 1921. 
Russell, Henry, “Sunday School Worship,’ National 
Sunday-School Union (London), 1925. 


CHAPTER VI 
LEARNING BY DOING 


Time was when the chief business of Sunday- 
school pupils was to read the Scriptures, learn 
the names of the kings of Israel, and memorize 
the catechism and so-called “Golden Texts.” It 
mattered little whether the passages read or texts 
memorized were within the comprehension of the 
pupil. Interest was a will-o’-the-wisp which had 
to be dragooned into submission. Activity was 
an enemy, not an ally. Thrills of joy springing 
out of heartfelt interest were seldom experienced, 
and learning was comparative drudgery. All 
this has changed where the educational maxim of 
learning by doing is recognized. In the effort to 
bring jungle instincts into subjection, the teacher 
finds a powerful ally in this principle. 

Carlyle says, “Man without tools is nothing; 
with tools he is all.” Learning by doing is a 
maxim that is to-day written large over all educa- 
tional movements. In the first place the child 


who attempts to express a thought in action soon 
99 


100 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


realizes how important it is to observe clearly 
and correctly. A child attempting to draw a cow 
from memory omitted the ears. When asked 
where were the missing parts, he made an excuse 
to absent himself, hurriedly visited a neighboring 
pasture, and, returning, drew the ears in their 
proper place. “Expression makes for accuracy. 

Certainly the little child learns by doing. 
Watch him at his play. All the wise mother has 
to do is to supply him with material, and he needs 
no urging to keep himself busy. He, like Helen 
Keller, explores life with his fingers. “My 
fingers,” she says, “are ever athirst for the earth.” 
A pile of sand at once becomes the focus of at- 
traction. Children at the seaside in the summer 
or playing in a pile of snow in the winter never 
lack employment. They dig trenches and build 
walls, construct castles and forts. Imaginary 
horses and carts carry weighty loads from place 
to place. Motor-cars speed from town to country 
and from country to town. Stately sailing ships 
cross the ocean, and mighty steamers ply from 
port to port. A little boy home from the sea- 
side and, sadly missing the sand, invented the 
idea that he was a coal merchant. He backed his 
imaginary cart against an imaginary ship, de- 
livered his coal to imaginary customers, made out 


LEARNING BY DOING 101 


bills and collected the money which he imagined 
jingled in his pocket, and that night prayed that 
God would make him a better coal merchant. It 
was all very vivid to him. Children at play toil 
tirelessly from early morning and only reluctantly 
cease their engrossing employment. Make- 
believe is as good as reality and much less ex- 
pensive. Dickens describes Mr. Gradgrind as a 
kind of cannon loaded to the muzzle with facts, 
prepared to blow children clean out of the regions 
of childhood at one discharge. He seemed a gal- 
vanizing apparatus, too, charged with a grim 
mechanical substitute for the tender young imag- 
inations that were to be stormed away. — 
Activity is Nature’s way of developing her off- 
spring. He who acts learns. The little tot in 
the Beginners’ Department is busy all day long 
absorbing sense-impressions. He is educating 
himself through his senses. Mother Nature urges 
the child to learn through seeing objects, handling 
them, tasting and smelling and dropping them, 
but when the time does come for the mind to break 
away from the literalness of sense-impressions his 
ability to make mental pictures is greatly en- 
hanced. If it were not for the increasing volume 
of sense-impressions his mind would be handi- 
capped and his conclusions would ever be crude 


102 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


and inadequate. The imagination feeds on past 
memories, and Nature is always urging the child 
to obtain fresh experiences as food for his grow- 
ing mind. He is continually asking: What is it? 
What is it like? What is it for? 

The sense of touch is far and away the most 
valuable of all the senses. Taylor says: ‘“With- 
out the sense of touch the child would not only see 
things flat, but the myriad forms that fill the 
earth and sky would never be known to him... 
neither rough nor smooth, fine nor coarse, sharp 
nor blunt, round nor square, far nor near, in high 
nor low relief. In fact he would have no idea in 
the concrete or in the abstract of any such quali- 
ties. He would in manhood be tumbling down- 
stairs, over chairs, into the fireplace, into the wash- 
tub, and everywhere else just as he does in 
childhood before his sense has taught him the re- 
hef and relation to objects. Without it he would 
know neither land nor sea, wood nor mineral. Ifa 
man were deprived of the sense of touch, every 
loom, every railway car, every industry in which 
man is engaged would instantly stop. All these 
are dependent upon its high cultivation for its 
successful conduct.” } 

Age means a cessation of experimentation, a 

1 Taylor, “The Study of the Child,” p. 29, 


cos ~aeeeanl 


LEARNING BY DOING 103 


satisfaction with present attainments, an abate- 
ment of curiosity, a slackening of effort to con- 
quer new worlds; but childhood and youth are 
ever pioneers; they explore life with their sense- 
organs. ‘The little child’s insistent desire to run 
away is an expression of desire to learn by doing. 
The boy’s impulse to cross the ocean is the urge 
of the same great principle. 

A child’s religion is action; not, what wilt thou 
have me believe? but rather, what wilt thou have 
me to do? 

But let us go further. It is probable that the 
learning of all new truth begins by doing rather 
than by knowing; that is, doing precedes thinking 
and even precedes feeling. Do we feel and then 
act because of our feelings, or do we act first and 
feel afterward? ‘The question is one of practical 
importance for all who have to deal with young 
life. Bovet, who carefully investigated the origin 
of children’s quarrels says: ‘‘We have to lay it 
down as a general rule that feelings of hostility 
are by no means the cause of quarrels. They are 
their effect. The quarrel does not arise from 
hatred, but gives rise to it.” 

Do we think first and act because of the 
thought, or is it the other way about? Intellect 
develops late; it is late in the race and late in the 


104 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


individual. Primitive creatures are governed 
much more by feeling than by thought. Intellect 
has little place in the very immature; feeling 
governs to a greater extent. The beginning of 
life is action, not feeling. Action precedes; feel- 
ing follows. 

I once spent a delightful summer afternoon 
with two children, a girl and a boy, the one seven 
and the other just over eight years of age. We 
were rather aimlessly playing about the garden 
when presently a large caterpillar was discovered. 
Both the children were shy of it. I took the 
opportunity to help them to overcome their in- 
stinctive repugnance toward the creepy, crawly 
creature. I found it of little use to say, “Don’t 
be afraid.” I even told them a story about a 
wonderfully brave child who was not afraid, but 
made little progress until by imitation I encour- 
aged them to allow it to crawl on their hands and 
arms. I bared my own arm and allowed it to 
crawl first on my fingers, then on my hand and 
up my arm. Gradually the children imitated me, 
first the boy and then the girl, allowing the cater- 
pillar to crawl on their fingers, then on their 
hands and ultimately up their bare arms. The 
fear was overcome. It was not accomplished by 
telling the children that it would not hurt them; 


LEARNING BY DOING 105 


the new feelings of confidence and courage grew 
with the doing. 

The snake-charmer and the lion-tamer grow 
familiar by contact. They not only learn by 
doing but they develop the necessary emotion that 
gives them confidence for still further action. 
The necessary new emotion comes as a result of 
action, not action as the result of the emotion. 
The seat of the emotion, as Cannon has shown, 
is in the body; an emotion is the way the body 
feels. Baudouin puts it this way: “According 
to what is known as the peripheral theory of the 
emotions, propounded by Lange and William 
James, it is an error to believe that emotion se- 
cures-expression through physical signs. ‘These 
psychologists hold, on the contrary, that the phys- 
ical sighs are the actual cause of the emotion. 
We ought not, they contend, to say, ‘We weep 
because we are sad; we tremble because we are 
afraid; we clench our fists because we are angry.’ 
We ought to say, ‘We are sad because we weep; 
we are afraid because we tremble,’ and soon... . 
the most potent method of overcoming fear by 
induced suggestion would appear to be for the 
suggester to direct his attention not to the fear 
itself, but to the accompanying movements.” * 


2“Suggestion and Auto-Suggestion,” pp. 61-62. 


106 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


This author then adds the following illustration : 
“A boy of twelve had from earliest childhood 
evinced a positive phobia of toads. Whenever he 
caught sight of one, his face grew pale, his back 
became arched, and he made convulsive movements 
with the forearms. This phobia had originated 
in imitation of his mother, who had similarly de- 
rived it imitatively from her mother. Ascending 
through the generations the symptoms were more 
violent. The grandmother had a severe nervous 
paroxysm at the sight of a toad, falling convulsed 
to the ground. In her case, too, the trouble came 
by imitation. Her mother, in a deathbed de- 
lirium, witnessed by the daughter, had been af- 
fected with the hallucination that toads were 
crawling all over her body. In treating the boy, 
I dealt with the motor symptoms, saying, ‘You 
will no longer arch your back at sight of a toad,’ 
etc. After three sittings at which these sugges- 
tions were made in the waking state, the phobia 
had disappeared. It seemed as if, by stopping 
the movements expressive of fear, I had actually 
dealt with the cause of the fear.” ? 

In character building does the same principle 
hold? Does feeling precede action, or does action 
precede feeling? For example, if the desire be 

3 “Suggestion and Auto-suggestion,” p. 63. 


LEARNING BY DOING 107 


to develop chivalrous conduct in an adolescent 
boy, should we try to stir latent chivalrous feel- 
ings, and expect action to follow, or try to induce, 
say by imitation, chivalrous action. Is it certain 
that chivalrous feelings will result? Is the spring 
of moral life in action or feeling? Should 
the aim be imitation or inspiration? Which 
should come first? Are virtues the flowers of 
right action, or are actions the flowers of 
virtues? 

It would require a whole book to discuss this in- 
teresting question adequately, and the discussion 
would not be satisfactory unless many tests were 
made and scientific proof obtained. Whatever 
may have been the genesis of fear and anger, we 
feel certain that the higher feelings, such as 
chivalry and philanthropy, are induced first by 
imitation. Perhaps in the past we have not given 
a sufficiently important place to imitation as a 
character producer. The urge to imitate is of 
first importance. Woodworth says: ‘But what 
I wish especially to emphasize is the imitation 
motive. There exists in the child at a certain 
early age, and in some degree later as well, a tend- 
ency to imitate, a drive, easily aroused, towards 
performing acts like those perceived in other 
persons, especially in persons that possess for the 


108 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


child a degree of prestige. The imitating child, 
or youth, or adult, is not a purely passive mech- 
anism, but contains a drive towards imitation that 
can readily be aroused to activity. The child 
likes to imitate, this liking being part of his 
general social orientation. The objection to the 
imitation psychology, as usually taught, is that 
it makes of imitation a ready-made reflex mech- 
anism, while it fails to recognize the drive towards 
imitation, or the drive towards social perception 
and behavior generally.” # 

I saw a child one day following her mother. 
It was raining, and the mother was holding up her 
skirt with one hand and her umbrella with the 
other. ‘The child also carried an umbrella, but 
though her skirt reached only to her knees she 
daintily lifted it up as she saw her mother doing. 
Here was an example of the tendency to imitate. 
Kirkpatrick classes it as an adaptive, that is, a 
specialized form of instinct only possessed by 
higher animals and man. The function of imita- 
tion seems to be to adapt the individual “while 
young and plastic to modes of life that will secure 
survival in maturity.” It also is helpful to adult 
individuals in making quick adjustments of be- 
havior to new conditions. McDougall, referring 


4“Dynamic Psychology,” p. 186. 





LEARNING BY DOING 109 


to social movements, says: “Imitation is the 
prime condition of all collective mental life... . 
Imitation is then not only the great conservative 
force of society, it is also essential to all social 
progress. . . . If imitation, maintaining customs 
and traditions of every kind, is the great conserv- 
ative agency in the life of societies, it plays also 
a great and essential part in bringing about the 
progress of civilization. Its operation as a factor 
in progress is of two principal kinds: (1) The 
spread by imitation throughout a people of ideas 
and practices generated within it from time to 
time by its exceptionally gifted members; (2) 
The spread by imitation of ideas and practices 
from one people to another. There are certain 
features or laws of the spreading by imitation 
that are common to these two forms of the 
process.” ® 

Boys accept as their hero not the men who think 
things but rather those who do them. Nature’s 
method of teaching her offspring is to urge him to 
action. ‘The man who makes a name at baseball, 
the mighty footballer, the fastest runner, the 
speediest swimmer, the fearless doer of great 
deeds, these all are the heroes of youth; the phi- 
losopher was never a boy’s hero. 


5 “Social Psychology,” pp. 326, 328, 334-335. 


110 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


In the last analysis it is better models rather 
than better teachers that immature children or 
primitive nations most need. Perhaps this ex- 
plains the comparative powerlessness of the 
church. She has taught her children to feel and 
to know without developing sufficiently the power 
to do. If this error in method is ever to be 
rectified there must be a large place in religious 
education for expression. We learn, primarily, 
not by memorizing, not by thinking, but by 
doing. It has been well said, “All truth dies in 
the mind that is not lived out in practice.” The 
catechism must have been invented to help indolent 
fathers and mothers to free themselves from the 
real task of training their children. It certainly 
was never written by sympathetic lovers of child 
life who appreciated the “learning by doing” 
principle. 

Goethe says, “The highest cannot be spoken.” 
But that does not mean that it cannot be com- 
municated, for if it can be acted it can be 
communicated. L. P. Jacks says: ‘Though the 
highest cannot be spoken, it can be always acted. 
By acting it we not only grasp it firmly ourselves 
but we communicate it in the clearest manner one 
to another. ‘There is a language of action as well 
as a language of words; and of the two the lan- 


LEARNING BY DOING 111 


guage of action is the more telling, the more in- 
telligible, the more unmistakable, and in the 
deepest sense the more eloquent. Some of the 
profoundest truths ever revealed to mankind have 
been conveyed through the language of action, 
—Christianity is an example.” ° 

We cannot tell the love of God, we cannot 
preach the love of God, the highest cannot be 
spoken, but we can act it, live it. Again quoting 
Jacks: “Beware of the eloquence of mere speech 
and ground nothing upon it which cannot be con- 
firmed by the higher eloquence of action. Truths 
which have nothing but speech to recommend them 
are apt to degenerate into cant. Truths which 
are eloquently argued for but not acted—such 
truths I find very hard to distinguish from les. 
You may prove them up to the hilt, but until you 
act them you will convince nobody.” * 

What, then, is wrong with the functioning of 
our Sunday-schools? Indeed, with the function- 
ing of much religious education? And what is 
the line of reform and progress? The Sunday- 
school is not organized along sufficiently practical 
lines. I mean that religious education for the 
most part is too preachy and “talky-talky.” It 


6 “Living Universe,” pp. 22-23, 
7™“Living Universe,” p. 27. 


112 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


aims to instruct and inspire, but fails to furnish 
opportunity for completing the teaching through 
expression. ‘l'o be good, one must be good for 
something. It is better to practise goodness than 
it is either to talk about it or to think about it. 

Perhaps the Sunday-school benefits the teachers 
more than it does the pupils, for it is by teaching 
we learn; docere est discere. 'The modern 
Sunday-school excels in that it provides work for 
many more workers than the old-fashioned school 
did, but it still falls far short of the ideal. It 
must not only provide lessons for all stages of 
development, but it must become an institution for 
learning and for learning by doing. The more 
advanced schools already provide opportunities 
for expressing the lesson in various ways. 

I have made one or two references to the proj- 
ect method in the last chapter. The project 
method means learning by doing codperatively. 
It means impression through expression. ‘The 
aim is to organize “projects” that are closely 
coordinated with the curriculum. ‘The idea is 
to set on foot activities that can be played or 
wrought out by groups of children either in make- 
believe or downright reality. It is obvious that 
to be successful these projects must follow the line 
of the child’s interest and be exactly suitable to 


LEARNING BY DOING 113 


the stage of the pupil’s development. For ex- 
ample, let us suppose that the leader’s aim is to 
promote a good codperative spirit in the life of 
the group. In the Beginners’ Department she 
will begin with games that make for a better ac- 
quaintance one with another. Many of the games 
can be-played with dolls acting out the courtesies 
in play life. 

In the Primary Department the winter feeding 
of birds can be taken up, each pupil bringing a 
little something to add to the food-store, or mak- 
ing a bird feeding table, erecting it in the school 
grounds or the children’s own home garden or 
yard, and caring for it. Other possible activities 
include playing courtesy games or illustrating 
street scenes in other lands; acting a story for one 
of the other grades in tableaux or scenes, such as 
a story illustrating how to settle a quarrel; plan- 
ning a harvest home day in school, distributing 
the gifts that are received. In the Junior De- 
partment a class may act as a party of explorers, 
landing among Indians as did William Penn and 
living with them without quarreling. Pupils 
may also build huts, implements, and furniture 
and establish schools and hospitals. These actiy- 
ities are merely suggestive. Others equally 
adaptable and serviceable will readily suggest 


114. THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


themselves to teachers of these and higher grades 
who appreciate the importance of the principle. 

The great field for expression in the Sunday- 
school is in the practice of goodness. Courtesy 
between companions, unselfish helpfulness in the 
home circle, deeds of loving service to those in 
need, must all become part and parcel of the 
teaching process. Kindness to pets, the care of 
plants and gardens, service for the sick, gifts for 
the poor, and Christmas programs, should all be 
planned on the principle, “It is more blessed to 
give than to receive.” 

With such a program the session of the Sunday- 
school may be considerably lengthened and week- 
day activities of all sorts arranged with the aim 
of giving opportunities for social intercourse and 
learning by doing. The church as a worshiping 
institution alone will never solve the ills of life. 
‘Pure religion and undefiled before our God and 
Father is this,—to visit the fatherless and widows 
in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted 
from the world.” Jesus said, “My meat is to do 
the will of my Father.” He went about doing 
good. St. John writes: “A moral lesson has 
never been learned until it has been lived. There 
is no magical process by which pious plat- 
itudes poured into the ears of a child are 


LEARNING BY DOING 115 


transformed into the tough fibre of Christian 
character. It is only when his feelings have 
been stirred and found manifestation in the 
conduct to which they prompt that he has prof- 
ited by the lesson.” Jacks, quoting a head 
master replying to his question, ‘Where in your 
time-table do you teach religion?” says: “We 
teach it all day long. We teach it in arithmetic 
by accuracy. We teach it in language by learn- 
ing to say what we mean, ‘yea, yea, and nay, nay.’ 
We teach it in history, by humanity. We teach 
it in geography, by breadth of mind. We teach 
it in handicraft, by thoroughness. We teach it 
in astronomy, by reverence. We teach it in the 
playground by fair play. We teach it by kind- 
ness to animals, by courtesy to servants, by good 
manners to one another, and by truthfulness in all 
things. We teach it by showing the children that 
we, their elders, are their friends and not their 


enemies.”’ ® 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Johnston, Ethel Archibald, “Possibilities of Expression 
Work,” Pilgrim Press, 1921. 

Collings, Ellsworth, “An Experiment with a Project 
Curriculum,’ Macmillan Co., 1923. 


8“Living Universe,” pp. 50-51. 


116 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


Dewey, John and Evelyn, “Schools of Tomorrow,” E. 
P. Dutton & Co., 1915. 

Character Education Institution, 1922, “The Iowa Plan 
of Character Education.” 

Stevenson, John Alfred, “The Project Method in Teach- 
ing,’ Macmillan Co., 1921. 

Jacks, L. P., “Living Universe,’ London, Hodder 
& Stoughton, 1923. New York, George H. Doran Co. 


CHAPTER VII 
PLAY AND EXPRESSION 


Anp what shall we say of play, its place, its 
power, and its possibilities in the religious educa- 
tion of children and young people through the 
Sunday-school? The public school is recogniz- 
ing its value. Sunday-schools and churches are 
following their lead, though, truth to tell, some- 
what reluctantly. The significance of play as 
related to physical growth and development has 
long been recognized, but play as a unique, useful, 
and efficient ally in religious education is a dif- 
ferent concept. Great teachers work with nature. 
Nature has constituted play not only an essential 
to physical development but an _ educational 
method with roots as deep as instinct. The 
tendency to expression in play is as old as 
heredity. As hunger and thirst express physi- 
ological need, so play is the expression both of 
physical and psychological necessity. The au- 
thoritative demand of this twofold necessity must 


be heeded. 
117 


118 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


In the Sunday-school of to-morrow, the teacher 
will plan his work so that play will be an essential 
part of his teaching program. 

The play activities of the child change with his 
developing life. It is a fascinating study to note 
the changing interest in games. The child of 
three or four is happier with his bricks alone than 
in any codperative play. A little child’s tea- 
party always results in each child playing his own 
game. ‘The codperative interest does not awaken 
till later. Children are often, indeed, led to play 
cooperative games before they are really ready for 
them. ‘There is a significant difference in the 
child’s interest in a baseball score as compared to 
that of his elder brother’s. Members of the lower 
school team start by asking, “How many runs did 
I maker” And the lad is satisfied if he made a 
high score, even if his side has been defeated ; the 
idea of playing for one’s side comes later. 

But let us look deeper into the meaning of play, 
for deep indeed is its significance. As long ago 
as the seventeenth century the poet Schiller wrote, 
“Deep meaning oft lies hid in childish play.” 
Poets are seers. They glimpse the dim and dis- 
tant future and blaze the trail for the scientists. 
Except by the seer the value of play was not ap- 
preciated in the olden days, and it is only begin- 


PLAY AND EXPRESSION 119 


ning to be generally realized in the twentieth cen- 
tury. The love of play is something comparable 
to the love of story or, on the negative side, to the 
repulsion one feels in the presence of a serpent. 

Why does the human being shrink from crawl- 
ing creatures? Why does the child love a story? 
Why are these instinctive reactions so deeply im- 
bedded in human nature? May it not be possible 
that the cause dates at least from the time when 
our forefathers were tree-dwellers? ‘There they 
were safe from the attack of the larger animals; 
lions and tigers and elephants had comparatively 
little terror for them. But the serpent and other 
creatures that crept and crawled had access to 
their habitations. For ages these preyed upon 
the offspring of the tree-dwellers; the serpent was 
one of the few creatures who could steal the babe 
from the mother’s arms. Thus the peculiar 
terror that is inborn in the female, though not 
wholly confined to the female, becomes comprehen- 
sible. ‘The stories of the Garden of Eden picture 
sin as a serpent. ‘The terror of the serpent was 
known, or at any rate felt, by primitive folk; con- 
sequently the figure was a perfect one to make 
vivid the awfulness of sin. 

Children love stories because in the olden days 
when there were no newspapers, no books, no 


120 ‘THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


printing, not even writing, all knowledge was 
passed on from generation to generation by means 
of tales handed down from father to child. 
Gathered round the camp-fire and the chimney- 
corner, the youth of the tribe or the clan listened 
to tales of heroic deeds until “once upon a time” 
became a marvelous charm. It will always retain 
that charm. As with stories, so it is with play. 
Play is a racial inheritance. That is why it offers 
such an irresistible appeal to all grades of unfold- 
ing life. 

Play is more than mere idleness. No adult is 
ever more busy in his life’s work than he was when, 
in childhood, he was absorbed in play. It is safe 
to assert that the best player makes the best 
prophet. ‘The child who plays needs a director; 
the child who does not play needs a doctor. 

Consider the difference to the child between 
play and work. The child is busy with his bricks: 
he piles and repiles them all day long, and we call 
it play. The bricklayer erecting the building 
plys his trade, and we call it work. What is the 
difference? One man plays baseball; another 
makes it his profession. ‘The business man takes 
his recreation in the summer-time catching fish in 
streams and sea; but the fisherman performs his 
hardy toil, takes all the risk and hardship of the 


PLAY AND EXPRESSION 121 


ocean, and toils early and late at his work. 

It is obvious that we must have clearly in mind 
what we mean by play. Perhaps we shall find a 
solution if we recognize that the term “play” may 
be applied to all activities that are free and spon- 
taneous and are performed for the sake of the 
activity rather than for the result attained. 

One plays for the sheer joy of playing; one 
works to make his living. ‘The child builds his 
blocks for the joy of building, only to knock them 
down again, but the bricklayer lays his bricks for 
the permanent value that accrues to himself or 
to the community and for the reward that he gets 
for his toil. The term “work” therefore includes 
all those activities in which by means of concen- 
trated attention one performs actions and tasks 
for the sake of the gain that comes rather than 
for the activity itself. It is a question of atti- 
tude and motive rather than occupation. <A good 
definition of play is: activities which are free and 
spontaneous, pursued for the very joy of their 
performance rather than for any end to be gained 
by that performance. 

A number of theories have been advanced to 
explain the origin of play and why it makes such 
a powerful appeal to the child. ‘They are worth 
considering briefly. 


122 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


Surptus Enrercy Turory.—It was Schiller, 
in the beginning of the eighteenth century, who 
first propounded the theory of surplus energy. 
But it was not until the time of Herbert Spencer, 
about the middle of the nineteenth century, that 
this interpretation of play was seriously con- 
sidered. Herbert Spencer developed Schiller’s 
idea and crystallized it. 

The argument is that children, who do not need 
to expand their nervous energy in the useful ac- 
tivities pursued by their parents, consume their 
surplus in playing; that is, they play merely be- 
cause they must do something to give expression 
to their rapidly growing muscular system. 

For a long time this was the accepted theory. 
It is, of course, obviously insufficient to say that 
play is due only to overflowing energy. A child 
will often play when he is practically exhausted. 
Neither is it true to say that the normal state of 
the child is that of resting or working, and that 
only when he gets a superabundance of energy 
does he play. Moreover, this theory does not 
give any help in understanding the kind of play 
that children indulge in at different age periods. 
Why is “make-believe” and “let’s pretend” so 
full of enchantment to child life? Nor does this 
theory explain the motive behind the difference 


PLAY AND EXPRESSION 123 


in children’s play at different ages or during dif- 
fering stages of their development. The theory 
of surplus energy does not satisfy the thinking 
mind, and we must look for a better and fuller 
answer elsewhere. 

Tue RecapirutaTion THrory.—The reca- 
pitulation theory of play may be stated as follows: 
children play because of the nervous mechanism 
they have inherited from their forefathers. 
Mosso says: ‘What we call instinct is the voice 
of past generations reverberating like a distant 
echo in the cells of the nervous system. We feel 
the breath, the advice, the experience of all men, 
from those who lived on acorns and struggled with 
wild beasts down to the virtues and toil of our 
fathers, and the fear and love of our mothers.” 

The theory is that the child recapitulates the 
race; that is, the individual lives over again the 
history of his ancestors. Ontogeny repeats phy- 
logeny. In play, when the will is set free from 
compulsive habitudes, the mind and body turn to 
the old racial activities which operate through re- 
flexes and instincts, the nervous mechanism of 
which is born fully developed. Groos suggests 
that “the play of youth depends on the fact that 
certain instincts, especially useful in preserving 
the species, appear before the animal seriously 


124 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


needs them.” The little child is prone to strike 
with anything he can get his hands on, and many 
observers have noted that boys are almost un- 
able to refrain from striking and throwing. Make 
a note of the games that are played in which the 
two elemental impulses to strike and throw are 
brought into activity, and you will find your list 
will be a long one. 

We cannot follow the theory of recapitulation 
in its most extreme form. To say that the child 
must necessarily pass through all the stages that 
the race has lived, or to dogmatize that in the 
lapse of ages nothing has been learned and noth- 
ing forgotten, would be to hold to an extremist 
view. St. John puts it this way, “The great dan- 
ger is in the tendency to expect the child to fol- 
low too closely in the pathway that his savage and 
barbarian ancestors have trod, forgetting that 
while the likeness is very clear, nature’s aim is not 
to reproduce the past save as it will serve the pres- 
ent needs of the child.” 

Not only must the question, Why do children 
play? be answered, but also, Why do the activities 
of adults when released from the shop or office re- 
vert to the use in recreation of the oldest and most 
elementary impulses, such as the instincts to run, 
to throw, to strike, to fish, to hunt, to struggle? 


PLAY AND EXPRESSION 125 


These are all racial activities and recapitulate 
themselves in the individual. They have all been 
of great biological value and are at every oppor- 
tunity reverted to by the individual with avidity 
and refreshment. Indeed it would seem that the 
further we hark back to our holiday-time activi- 
ties the greater will be the release to tired nerves. 
Let no man think he can enjoy a perfect rest by 
spending his holiday going to the opera or motor- 
ing. Music and motoring are both acquirements 
of the race too recent to give the release that is 
needed. But fishing and swimming and camping, 
living among the birds and the flowers in the for- 
est and beside the sea or stream, these all repeat 
the elementary pursuits of the race and are al- 
ways a source of release and rejuvenation. ‘The 
racially old is seized by the individual with ease 
and joy.” Stanley Hall’s idea is that childhood 
represents the race, that woman does also in a 
degree, but that man comparatively represents 
habituation. The child is older than man, ages 
older, but in any case man is whole only when he 
plays. 

THE Catuarsis THrory.—In the chapter on 
“Learning by Doing” we tried to show the place 
and value of doing in learning. But doing is not 
only of value in learning the new but also as a 


126 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


cathartic in purifying the old. There is some 
doubt as to the origin of the word “catharsis.” It 
was used by Aristotle to express the effect of art, 
especially in the Greek tragedies, in purging the 
soul of sordid and base ideas and desires; a sort of 
moral disinfectant. Psychoanalysis teaches us 
that if we do not give expression to instinctive 
emotions, even though they are primitive and in 
themselves antisocial, we imperil our physical, 
mental, and moral health. 

These old impulses must not be disregarded. 
They cannot be laid aside at will or repressed into 
the subconscious; if they do they will take their 
revenge and affect the physical as well as the men- 
tal and moral health of the individual. Hadfield 
says: “If a fear complex is refused normal ex- 
pression it achieves its end by paralysing the 
soldier. Sex perversions are the outcome of re- 
pression of that instinct.” * An instinct that for 
one reason or another cannot be allowed expres- 
sion in the normal manner may be satisfied in 
either of two ways: by a harmless expression or 
by sublimation. 

Nature has provided in play a wonderful safety- 
valve for the subconscious mind. Play purges the 
soul of the ape and tiger feelings. The climbing 

1“Psychology and Morals,” p. 26. 


PLAY AND EXPRESSION 127 


instincts account for the love of the boy for climb- 
ing trees and scaling fences, and the performance 
of these things in play usually satisfies the urge 
without any harm to himself. The chase-and- 
struggle games have a high cathartic value to the 
early adolescent; they purge his nature and 
purify his soul through harmless activity. Foot- 
ball is taking the place of the old public house 
brawl. Boxing under right auspices for boys 
purges in harmless fashion these old jungle in- 
stincts. The child who pretends he is a coal mer- 
chant is giving a harmless vent to his feelings of 
ownership and acquisition and certainly up to a 
point satisfies them. ‘There is not a game or a 
play handed down from generation to generation 
but acts as a purging and a curative influence 
to the soul. 

A writer in the Paris “Temps” suggests a very 
interesting and vital problem when he affirms that, 
if the world is serious in its desire to put an end 
to war, it must forbid the manufacture of toy 
soldiers. ‘Teaching children to play at battles 
and accustoming them to the idea of death in this 
form, he thinks, is just as demoralizing as giving 
them skeletons and little coffins to play with. 
This view is indorsed by Sir Hamo Thornycroft 
and others, who protest against the toy guns and 


128° THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


other engines of war that fill the shops. If chil- 
dren must have warlike toys he suggests that the 
weapons of far-off ages should be copied, as the 
child would then associate them with half-romantic 
or mythical beings. If there is any truth in the 
catharsis theory, play with the old weapons of the 
race may well produce a harmless purging of the 
fighting feelings that are pent up in the child 
nature. The position taken by Sir Hamo 
Thornycroft, however, seems to be a reasonable 
one. Guns and soldiers, are of too recent origin 
and too closely related to intellectual development 
to give a harmless vent to the fighting instinct as 
does the hitting of a ball with a club or the shoot- 
ing of stones with a sling. Playing with guns, 
therefore, or even with toy soldiers, will not have 
the same valuable purging effect as running, 
climbing, chasing, and ball-striking and _ ball- 
throwing games. If we prevent a child from ever 
indulging in games and plays of competition, the 
probability is that when later he fights he will 
fight relentlessly. There are many belligerent 
pacifists. 

True, the ultimate aim should be to sublimate, 
that is, to turn the use of the instinct to a higher 
purpose, but we must first recognize the immense 
purgative value of harmless expression, especially 





PLAY AND EXPRESSION 129 


to adolescents. Of all the gifts nature has be- 
stowed upon immaturity, none other perhaps is 
comparable in value to that of play. It is the 
purest expression of the motor habits of the race. 
Stanley Hall says: “True play never practises 
what is phylogenetically new, and this, industrial 
life often calls for. ...I regard play as the 
motor habits and spirit of the past of the race, 
persisting in the... present, as rudimentary 
founctions sometimes of and always akin to rudi- 
mentary organs. ‘The best index and guide to the 
stated activities of adults in past pages is found 
in the instinctive, untaught, and non-imitative 
plays of children. .. .”? 

The catharsis theory of play is to the writer the 
most attractive and satisfying answer to the ques- 
tion, Why do children play? The theory might 
almost have been called the vaccination theory. 
Play vaccinates the child just as the vaccine 
lymph inoculates against a more serious and 
harmful form of the complaint. 

Now all this helps us to understand why the 
child so much loves to play. We talk about learn- 
ing by doing; we must also learn to talk about 
purifying by playing. The church is only be- 
ginning to recognize the power and the possibili- 

2“Adolescence,” Vol. I, p. 202. 


130 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


ties of play in purging the soul of some of its 
uncouth biological inheritance. 

But the old instincts may also be sublimated, 
that is, diverted into other channels “satisfying 
to the individual and useful to the community.” 
The child’s impulse of construction can be turned 
into building something that is useful; curiosity 
directed into scientific research, the fighting im- 
pulses, can be sublimated into fighting error and 
wrong and sin; later, the sex impulses into creative 
handicrafts, art, music, gardening, nursing, teach- 
ing. It has been said: ‘‘Man cannot live with- 
out the primitive instincts which he inherits from 
an immemorial past; neither can he live a moral 
life in modern cultured society with them in their 
original form of manifestation. If sublimated, 
however, they may become a source of much that 
is great and good in modern life. ‘The develop- 
ment of a moral character depends largely upon 
the success with which the sublimation process is 
accomplished. Freudians have called attention to 
the sex instinct as the important factor in moral 
training, but the notion of sublimation is not 
limited to sex, being equally applicable to all the 
other important instincts.” Take fighting for an 
example. Why do boys fight? Why are girls 
so radically different in this particular? Why 


PLAY AND EXPRESSION 131 


are men always interested in a contest? The 
newspapers give much of their space to records of 
contests, sports, trials in the courts, and the like. 
Why is it possible in this twentieth century to 
gather day after day thousands of people to wit- 
ness a football match or some other contest? 
How is it possible to stage a prize-fight that in 
gate-receipts will bring in a hundred or even three 
hundred thousand dollars? If all the people who 
attended went to take part the problem would be 
more easily understood, but most go to watch, as 
spectators, not combatants. Why this love of be- 
ing a spectator? 

Bovet, in his “Fighting Instinct,” * gives the 
most thoughtful answers to these questions. He 
shows that fighting is closely related to sex, that 
with primitive people when men fight for possession 
of the female, the woman looks on. She allows the 
contest to proceed and becomes the slave of the 
victor. Bovet calls attention to the fact that 
when school-boys are together in a group they 
imitate one another. If a couple of boys run, the 
whole class runs; if one or two throw stones in the 
lake or climb trees, the rest do the same. But let 
two boys quarrel, and instead of imitating them 
their companions will form a ring, see that they 

3 Pages 49 ff, 


132 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


have fair play, and watch them fight it out. 
They may take sides, and may applaud or en- 
courage one or the other of the contestants, but, 
as Bovet puts it, “They refrain from intervening 
as scrupulously as if it were an ordeal, or a case 
in which Providence must be left to pronounce 
judgment in complete freedom. They are, in 
fact, watching a kind of sacred rite. In default 
of the god of battles, another divinity, the race, 
or nature, is about to indicate her favourite; and 
it is important that her award should be clearly 
heard.” 

These twin instincts will not be thwarted, they 
cannot be ignored, they cannot be starved. ‘To 
repress them is dangerous, for every repressed in- 
stinct has its revenge. ‘They must either be grati- 
fied, given a more or less harmless overflow, or 
sublimated. 

In boys’ gangs the fighting spirit is more or 
less harmlessly expressed and sublimated. Many 
of their innumerable play activities give a semi- 
harmless, if not a wholly harmless, outlet to pug- 
nacity. And as for sublimation every scout- 
master knows how readily the pugnacity of the 
bully can be diverted by giving him some respon- 
sible post. I had a boy in my troop of scouts 
who possessed all the characteristics of a bully. 


PLAY AND EXPRESSION 133 


He joined when he was twelve, and for a year or 
so we had a difficult time with him. He was 
constantly up before the court of honor, charged 
with some fault the outcome of his excessively 
aggressive and pugnacious disposition. I knew 
that if I could hold him until he was old enough 
to be made a patrol-leader he would stand a 
chance at least of sublimating this fighting spirit. 
I had difficulty in getting the troop to agree 
to help him, and when I faintly hinted that he 
might be given a patrol the whole troop was up 
in arms. One Saturday afternoon the troop, 
thirty strong, was out on a tracking expedition, 
but several of the older boys and officers were 
absent. I saw my chance. I divided the troop 
into two groups and told them to take a certain 
track out and home. ‘“Who’s in charge, sir?” 
asked the boys of one group. I named my 
troublesome lad, and every boy looked at the rest 
in amazement. But they knew what obedience 
meant, and my difficult boy not only took charge 
but he did it so acceptably that before long he 
was elected a patrol-leader and afterward became 
assistant scout-master. 

Tue Retease Turory.—tThe release theory 
gives light on the play of man, adult man, but 
does not generally assist in the answer to the ques- 


184 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


tion, Why do children play? Men play as a re- 
lease from habituated work, but children do not 
work unless we say all play to them is work. G. 
Stanley Hall sums up the release theory of play 
as follows: ‘In play we revive and rehearse old 
types of industry, unleashing primitive emotions 
... fall back on older, better organized, and 
saner strata . . . reanimate and reéducate our- 
selves, and revive old proclivities, which suggest 
. man’s lost paradise. . . . In play we are no 
longer intent upon the end, and there are no is- 
sues of life or death at stake, but the joy is in the 
activity itself, and the prize is fictive and trivial. 
. . . Thus play is a refuge, a hygienic resource, 
a release. It means rejuvenation, even from old 
age. ... Play does prepare for life, but this 
function of it is secondary and incidental. It 
does so by putting the individual in possession 
of the rich potentialities of his heredity, which 
would otherwise slumber or decay in him, and in 
this function lies the partial truth of Spencer’s 
theory of spontaneous activity.” 4 
In these days of industrial life when men are 
compelled to lead a life of close confinement in- 
doors to some habituated employment, the nerves 
are kept at high tension and the strain is severe. 


4 “Pedagogical Seminary,” Vol. XXII, pp. 518-519, 


~~. 


PLAY AND EXPRESSION 135 


Whether our calling keeps us in the office, the 
shop, the factory, or the school-room, release is 
essential to good health, and this release must be 
a complete change from the shut-in employment. 
More than this, if it is to be genuinely refreshing 
it must revert back to the exercise of the old activi- 
ties of the race. We may be assured if this can- 
not be done it will take an unhealthy form and 
find satisfaction in unworthy occupations. 

The children of the cities must find opportunity 
for free and energetic play that follows as nearly 
as possible racial lines of development. Ample 
playgrounds must be provided. Inexpensive and 
very frequent excursions to sea and forest must 
be available. In Chicago the opening of a large 
public playground is said to have reduced the 
cases brought before the juvenile court in that 
district by more than 33 per cent in one year. 
In certain reformatories in which free expression 
is given to the normal instincts of youth in play 
and work the number of reformations has been 
estimated at 80 per cent. ‘The child of the fourth 
generation brought up in a large city is a pa- 
thetic study. Here is where week-day activities 
are imperative. Can the church and the Sunday- 
school find a better field for the practice of Chris- 
tian philanthropy than the provision of play- 


136 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


grounds and the training of leaders who can assist 
in organizing the plays and games of the pupils in 
the schools? 

Learning by doing evolves naturally enough 
into learning by playing, and from learning by 
playing it is only one step to learning by dramatiz- 
ing. Indeed, as we have seen, much of the spon- 
taneous play of children is dramatic expression 
through make-believe. 

I recently watched the leader of a Junior De- 
partment teaching her pupils the geography of 
the Holy Land. She used maps, sketches, and 
other devices, but the climax of the lesson was 
reached when she set the children ‘‘acting” the 
map of Palestine. She chose about twenty of her 
forty-five pupils to form the coast-line; another 
dozen lined up and stood in the living map to rep- 
resent the Jordan River, the Sea of Galilee, and 
the Dead Sea. From the remainder she called for 
volunteers to stand for the chief cities. Jeru- 
salem being especially notable, she suggested that 
one of the bigger boys should represent it. The 
boy who offered, finding himself not quite certain 
of its site, walked up to the living map, folded 
his arms, and in silence studied the map on the 
board for quite a minute. He then compared it 


PLAY AND EXPRESSION 137 


with the living map, now seated on the floor of the 
room. When he was satisfied he proceeded to the 
right spot and took his position. Other cities and 
mountains were impersonated until the living map 
was complete. Some conversation and explana- 
tion of the nature of the land followed, which made 
it evident that the whole group of children were 
intensely interested. If rooms are not sufficiently 
commodious for acting of this kind, the school 
playground or an adjoining lawn, field, or park 
may be available. “The highest cannot be 
spoken,” but it can be acted, and the player at 
once both learns and teaches. To dramatize a 
personality means that the actor must enter into 
the thoughts and feelings of that personality, for 
one cannot express the unknown or that which he 
does not feel. 

There are many individuals who can act but 
who may not be able to preach or teach. I know 
a young man who Is a born mimic but who is any- 
thing but a success as a teacher. If in his church 
there was any real chance to teach by dramatizing, 
this youth would certainly be a bright and shining 
light. 

The church of yesterday ostracized the drama 
and missed a great opportunity, for both drama 


1388 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


and pageant offer unsuspected opportunities for 
religious education and for the cultivation of the 
spirit of worship. 

If the problem of the church is that of finding 
activities for her adherents the production of re- 
ligious drama should make a strong appeal to 
some of those who without it may fail to find other 
means of expression. ‘There are numbers of de- 
vout souls who, like the Passion Players of Ober- 
ammergau, could usefully give expression to the 
faith that is in them if the church would find the 
place and the necessary paraphernalia. 

The responsibility for finding an outlet for un- 
doubted talent must be faced. ‘There are means 
of expressing Christianity other than preaching 
and teaching. ‘The drama and pageant combine 
the mystic with art as expressed in rhythm, color, 
and movement. Adding these arts to that of 
story-telling, it seems to the writer that a knowl- 
edge of the Bible can be attractively portrayed 
with all the necessary local color and with a com- 
pelling charm that means much to those who see 
and hear. ‘The church building itself would often 
make the most appropriate setting for the pres- 
entation of truth. 

The variety and richness of material available 


PSS ee el ll Le TL le 


PLAY AND EXPRESSION 139 


in the field of drama and pageantry is illustrated 
by a recent volume which contains biblical plays, 
fellowship plays and pageants, and several un- 
classified plays and pageants.° 

The following quotation from the C. O. P. E. C. 
Commission on “The Social Function of the 
Church” is an admirable summary of the whole 
matter: “While games and enjoyments have been 
encouraged in the church’s programme, they have 
been valued chiefly for their indirect importance, 
as harmless occupations for those who might 
otherwise be worse employed; or as a means of 
discharging surplus energies which might other- 
wise be hard to control; or even as baits to the 
unwilling, or coating for the religious pill. They 
have not been regarded as spiritual activities be- 
fitting the leisure of mankind in general, and 
youth in particular, and so capable of providing 
the medium for a progressive education in the 
things of the spirit. . . . But if, as we think, the 
natural form of spiritual expression, for youth 
especially, is in a many-sided comradeship in play, 
it is the church’s business in some way or other to 
foster the comradeship of good play, regarding it 


5 “Religious Dramas, 1924,” selected by the Committee on 
Religious Drama of the Federal Council of Churches, 


140 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


as one of the most important points of contact 
with those not yet ready for all that it has to teach 
them.” 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Archibald, George Hamilton, “The Power of Play,” 
National Sunday-School Union, London, 1905. 

Forbush, William Byron, “Manual of Play,” George W. 
Jacobs & Co., 1914. 

Hall, G. Stanley, ‘Adolescence,’ D. Appleton and Co., 
1915. 

Groos, Karl, “The Play of Man.” Heinemann, 1901. 

Groos, Karl, “The Play of Animals,’ Chapman, 1898. 





CHAPTER VIIT 
SUGGESTION 


RELIGION, it is sometimes said, is “caught, not 
taught.” This statement is not the whole truth, 
but it has in it enough truth to be considered pro- 
foundly significant. How is religion caught? 
To a very large extent through the indirect yet 
ever open door of the subconscious, or, as it is now 
more often called, the unconscious mind. 

What is meant by the unconscious mind? 
Freud would say that our mind is like a two- 
storied house with subterranean cellars of great 
depth and extent; the upper floor the conscious 
mind, the under floor and subterranean passages 
the unconscious. ‘The upper is the waking aware- 
ness, but the lower is the sleeping, buried, for- 
gotten self. According to Freud the mind not 
only carries on activities of which it is conscious 
and has fully under control but in addition also 
carries on activities and holds memories which are 
unconscious and completely out of reach. It is 


something comparable to the physiological memory 
14] 


142 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


possessed by the body. A man’s body cells will 
remember whether he has ever had typhus or 
smallpox or a similar disease even though his 
mental memory does not remember. 

Teachers have reckoned in the past that chil- 
dren, or adults for that matter, can be taught 
only through the waking, conscious mind. Little 
attention has been given to the buried and for- 
gotten self. The new psychology is revealing 
that this unconscious mind exerts a profound and 
far-reaching influence upon behavior. 

This underneath mind is sometimes called the 
subliminal mind. It is the receptacle of ideas and 
memories which, long forgotten and deeply buried, 
cannot be brought back to consciousness without 
extraneous help. We might call it the mind that 
works without our awareness, the mind with which 
we dream. It has been spoken of as the store- 
house of race memories, to which is added those 
actual experiences which have lapsed from ordi- 
nary consciousness and which are composed chiefly 
of wishes and sentiments that have been repressed. 
It is the mind which controls the insane, or the 
patient when under the anesthetic. It is the mind 
that governs or misgoverns the drunken man and 
the sleep-walker. Freud thinks of it as sort of a 
dumping-pit of the soul, the swamp-land of the 





SUGGESTION 143 


human mind. He asserts that it is the repository 
of crude and primal instincts. The old ape and 
tiger feelings are buried there and cause behavior 
incompatible with civilized conventions. In some 
sense it is infantile in character; illogical, not in- 
tellectual. 

The unconscious mind is, however, remarkably 
dynamic. It is constantly striving to manifest it- 
self. Barbara Low says, “The unconscious is es- 
sentially emotional, instinctive, and dynamic, and 
is ever impelled to fulfil its desires, which desires, 
in their crude form, must conflict with the ‘civil- 
ised’ desires of man.” * 

All consciousness is motor; that is an axiom in 
psychology. But so is all unconsciousness. That 
is, the forgotten and buried past still influences 
behavior. Every teacher should endeavor to 
realize the large place that forgotten ideas have 
in the molding of behavior. Professor Grant, the 
historian, when addressing a group of school-boys, 
said, “The real value of a subject you are taught 
at school is what is left when you have forgotten 
all about it.” This is well illustrated by Tridon. 
He rehearses a most interesting case of a young 
woman of twenty-two years of age who was 


1“Psycho-analysis, a Varied Account of the Freudian The- 
ory,” p. 54. 


144 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


brought to Dr. Breuer in Vienna suffering from 
curious hysterical symptoms, one of them being 
an aversion to drinking water. Dr. Breuer 
vainly tried to remove the symptom by treatment. 
He explored the mind of his subject and un- 
earthed a forgotten memory that was the cause 
of her inability to drink. The young woman told 
the doctor about her English governess, whom she 
disliked greatly, and of that woman’s little dog, 
which she abhorred. One day she saw the dog 
drinking out of a glass. She felt an intense dis- 
gust which, instead of expressing, she repressed 
out of conventional respect for the governess. 
After giving unrestrained expression under hyp- 
notic suggestion of her abhorrence for the gov- 


erness and the dog, the patient was considerably. 


relieved, and when awakened she could take a glass 
and drink a large quantity of water. 

There are many similar cases of aversion. 
Aversions are caused by some forgotten experi- 
ence. All have their likes and dislikes. What is 
the psychology of them? Why a dislike for 
honey, or tomatoes, or salad? Why do we choose 
certain persons for our friends? Why not other 
persons? Why does a young man choose a certain 
young woman to be his life’s mate, and not some 
other? Doubtless because of the power that his 





SUGGESTION 145 


unconscious mind has over his choice, some stored- 
up ideals long ago accepted and cherished, now 
possibly forgotten. The picture of his mother 
with her strength and beauty of character, or 
possibly that of a sister or some other ideal of 
womanhood, has perhaps in childhood become 
part of him, the unconscious part, the influence of 
which is felt, but not known. Ask a child a ques- 
tion; he answers, “Because!” He cannot tell 
why, but something deep within makes him feel a 
reason. 

The question naturally arises, “How are we to 
influence this unconscious mind in childhood so 
that youth may be led away from the wrong into 
the paths of right?” The answer is by atmos- 
phere, through the unconscious power of sugges- 
tion. 

But what is suggestion? ‘There are various 
definitions. Let us examine some of them. F. 
W. Myers, quoted by Dr. Brown, says sugges- 
tion is ‘fa successful appeal to the subliminal self.” 
J. A. Hadfield states it is ‘fa process by which 
ideas are introduced into the mind without being 
submitted to the process of criticism.” William 
FE. McDougall describes it as ‘‘a process of com- 
munication resulting in the acceptance with con- 
viction of the communicated proposition in the 


146 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


absence of logical and adequate grounds for this 
acceptance.” ? 

Sidis makes this statement: “A great class of 
phenomena typified by the abrupt entrance from 
without into consciousness of an idea or image 
which becomes part of the stream of thought, and 
tends to produce the muscular . . . efforts which 
ordinarily follow upon its presence.” * He also 
points out that of the two personalities, the sub- 
conscious and the normal, the former alone is 
suggestible. Binet is quoted as saying that sug- 
gestion is “an idea which undergoes transforma- 
tion into action.” Baudouin says that suggestion 
is ‘‘the subconscious realisation of an idea.” By 
this he means that the unconscious mind passively 
absorbs the idea and works it out in action with- 
out awareness. Ideas, therefore, that come to us 
through suggestions are not conscious ideas. 
When an idea is conscious it is received critically, 
but suggestions are received uncritically. 

The Coué school insists that in the realm of 
thought we do not have a single idea, but rather 
two conflicting ideas; that is, when we think, we 
doubt. This is what Baudouin means by the law 
of reversed effort. Consciously to think a thing 


2“Social Psychology,” p. 97. 
3 “Psychology of Suggestion,” p. 8. 





OE ——————— 


oe 


SUGGESTION 147 


means to doubt that thing; that is where Binet’s 
above quoted definition is at fault, for in sugges- 
tion there is no doubt; all ideas are received pas- 
sively, uncritically, and realized subconsciously. 

Now, it is not easy to comprehend the tremen- 
dous practical importance of all this. It is really 
the psychology of the phrase, “religion is caught, 
not taught.” We may teach intellectually, but 
we have much wider entrance into the soul by and 
through the use of slantwise suggestion. This is 
what Walt Whitman means when he says, 


There was a child went forth every day 

And the first object he look’d upon, that object he be- 
came, 

And that object became part of him for the day or a 
certain part of the day, 

Or for many years or stretching cycles of years. 


The early lilacs became part of this child, 

And the grass and white and red morning-glories, and 
white and red clover, and the song of the phebe- 
bird, 

And the third-month lambs and the sow’s pink-faint 
litter, and the mare’s foal and the cow’s calf, 

And the noisy brood of the barnyard by the mire 
of the pondside, 

And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below 
there, and the beautiful curious liquid, 


148 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads, all 
became part of him. 


And that “object became part of him.” 
What part? The subconscious part, the forgot- 
ten part; and yet in the very truest sense that for- 
gotten part is the basis of his character, his soul. 

One child lives in a gentle home, absorbs from 
his environment good taste and refinement. In 
another home crudeness, coarseness, and baseness 
are absorbed. Like father, like son; like mother, 
like child. In youth, sentiments, religion, morals, 
character are caught not taught. They are not 
learned from a catechism but come to us through 
suggestion and are absorbed from other lives into 
the subconscious. This is a different thing from 
the acceptance of ideas by the mind intellectually. 
Jung, quoted by Waddle, says: “It is not the 
good and pious precepts, nor is it any other in- 
culcation of pedagogic truths that have a mould- 
ing influence upon the character of the developing 
child, but what most influences him is the pecul- 
iarly affective state which is totally unknown to 
his parents and educators. The concealed dis- 
cord between parents, the secret worry, the 
repressed hidden state with its objective signs 
which slowly but surely, though unconsciously, 


SUGGESTION 149 


works its way into the child’s mind... . The 
father and mother impress deeply . . . the seal 
of their personality. The more sensitive and 
mouldable the child, the deeper is the impression. 
Thus even things that are never spoken about are 
reflected in the child.” * 

It is of course ever so much better that the 
child’s character should be built by this uncon- 
scious process, for that which he thus gains leaves 
him free from self-conscious goodness. Self- 
conscious goodness is almost as unfortunate as 
unconscious wickedness. Reasoned behavior may 
be a good thing for a man, but it is a dangerous 
thing for a child. On the other hand, an ultra- 
saggestible adult nature is a misfortune. 

Baudouin says: ‘We tend to act as we have 
seen others act, above all when the model has been 
forgotten. So long as we remember our model 
we know we are imitating and we do as the model 
did. We know that the action does not emanate 
from ourselves and before doing it we supervise 
the intention and discuss it. But when the model 
has been submerged in the subconscious we imi- 
tate . . . and no longer discuss.” ° 
Psychology is teaching that the choice of a 


4“Tntroduction to Child Psychology,” p. 212. 
5 “Suggestion and Auto-Suggestion,” p. 83, 


150 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


career is determined more by the suggestions ab- 
sorbed and forgotten in childhood than by any 
conscious imitation of another. 

We tend to imitate what we like or what we ad- 
mire. The brilliant uniform of an indulgent 
uncle may later lead the nephew to embrace a 
military career, believing it to be “in the blood.” 
But is it in the blood? ‘True, there may be 
hereditary tendencies, but the new psychology 
teaches us that ideas once absorbed by the in- 
dividual but now forgotten are the mightiest 
influences in the grown man. Religion is “caught, 
not taught.” 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


>? 


Sidis, Boris, “The Psychology of Suggestion, 
pleton, 1921. 

Baudouin, Charles, “Suggestion and Auto-Suggestion,” 
translated by Eden and Cedar Paul. Allen & Unwin 
(London), 1921, 

McDougall, William, “Introduction to Social Psychol- 
ogy, Luce, 1921. 


Ap- 


\ 


CHAPTER IX 
SPECIAL DAYS 


THERE are certain occasions that need special 
consideration when planning the year’s program. 
The Christian festivals, Christmas and Easter, 
are of peculiar significance in the opportunities 
they offer for religious education and are, there- 
fore, of special interest to Sunday-schools, as also 
are Thanksgiving day and Promotion Sunday. 

There are times when the whole school ought 
to meet together, but occasions such as Christmas, 
Easter, and Thanksgiving are usually much en- 
joyed and appreciated when they are celebrated 
in the departments. 

Curistmas Day.—Perhaps none of the special 
days of the year is quite comparable to Christmas 
Sunday. ‘This is, of course, usually the Sunday 
before Christmas day. The arrangements for the 
giving service need to be carefully planned. 
Sometime before Christmas, classes of the various 


departments may plan special week-day meetings 
151 


152 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


for dressing dolls and making toys and games 
to put on the Christmas tree. 

The central idea of the Christmas service should 
be that of giving, not receiving. This idea can 
be kept in mind in the very poorest localities, and 
it is astonishing to see the results of such Christ- 
mas services in such neighborhoods. The poor- 
est children should certainly not miss_ the 
opportunity of helping to decorate the Christmas 
tree. Here we have an incomparable opportunity 
of providing an expression that will leave a last- 
ing impression. It is one of the best possible 
opportunities of the Sunday-school for “learning 
by doing,” for the children not only hear the 
Christmas story but they see the meaning of it 
wrought out in action. 

For the Beginners’, Primary, and Junior De- 
partments there is probably nothing that can take 
the place of the Christmas tree as a receptacle 
for the gifts the children bring. The tree should 
be firmly planted in a tub or fastened to a small 
platform. ‘Tinsel decorations are desirable, but, 
above all, candles are desirable, to be lighted by 
the children themselves. When the children take 
their places they may put the presents they have 
brought under their chairs until the time for their 
presentation comes, or they may be placed on the 


SPECIAL DAYS 153 


tree in advance. ‘The service may consist of (a) 
Christmas hymns, carols, prayers; (b) the Christ- 
mas story told by the teachers in the small class 
groups; and (c) the bringing of the offerings to 
the Christmas tree. When the story is over and 
a carol has been sung, the children come forward 
class by class and place their gifts upon the tree. 
When every one has finished, the birthday child of 
the week, if there is one, may be asked to light 
the first candle. One after another each pupil 
lights a candle until the whole tree is ablaze with 
light. In the meantime the other lights in the 
room have been extinguished, and now the pupils 
sit about the tree and feast their eyes upon its 
beauty. Presently they sing softly suitable 
hymns, “Away in a Manger,” and similar carols. 
Probably nothing in the nature of a religious 
celebration will make a deeper impression on the 
life of a pupil than this Christmas Sunday’s 
service. Who knows what it may not mean later 
in the life of the youth, or of the adult, or of the 
aged man? 

After the service is over, the distribution of the 
gifts is made. If the gifts of a particular de- 
partment have been planned for a children’s home 
or hospital, it may be possible for the entire de- 
partment to participate, going in a body, sing- 


154 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


ing carols, and through appointed representatives 
making the presentation. This is very desirable, 
if at all possible. Or classes may go separately 
to present their gifts. Some of the departments 
or classes should plan gifts for needy families. 
In these cases the presentation must be tactfully 
made. In some cases it will be best for a teacher 
or officer to present the gifts in the name of the 
department or class. In other cases older boys 
and girls and teachers may be organized into 
groups under the leadership of the more experi- 
enced leaders, to distribute the gifts in the homes. 
In this way the young people get experience in 
the real joy of giving, both of gifts and good 
wishes. 

I recall a Christmas eve in one of the worst 
slums of a great city. Passing through a back 
street the group of young people looked into an 
open doorway and saw a child on a sofa asleep. 
One of the boys of the party slipped into the room 
and laid a doll in the arms of the child and with 
a look at the mother which plainly said, “Don’t 
waken her,” slipped out again. It was a beauti- 
ful Christmas eve for that child, but it was an 
even more beautiful one both for the lad who 
carried the gift and for the rest of us who wit- 
nessed the incident. 





SPECIAL DAYS 155 


Tuankscivinc.—This is another gift Sunday. 
It is the easiest to arrange and will be found to 
be one of the most memorable of the year. The 
giving of thanks, of course, is the key-note of the 
day. Careful preparation should be made for 
its celebration. Notices should be given through 
the children to the parents a fortnight or so be- 
fore the Sunday. It is astonishing how generous 
human nature can be on a harvest thanksgiving 
day. One little school of two hundred pupils 
sent to a children’s hospital at least half a ton of 
vegetables, apples, grapes, jam, games, books, 
etc. Where there is distress in the neighborhood 
amore general distribution than this may be made 
locally, and the teachers and the older pupils 
again be employed to distribute them. For the 
Thanksgiving service a careful choice of hymns 
should be made. The note of gladness and 
thanksgiving should run through hymns, prayer, 
Scripture reading, story, and music. The 
sight of the gifts piled up on the tables in the 
front of each department room always makes a 
deep impression upon the children and doubtless 
has a lasting effect upon them morally. 

Easter.—The joys of Easter and of spring- 
time are inseparable. New life in nature is the 
key-note of this festival. It is the time of the 


156 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


singing of the birds; winter is gone, and summer 
is not far away. There will be little difficulty in 
choosing the right program for this service; 
nature is full of illustrations, and the very earth 
itself is singing the Easter song. Gifts of flowers 
may be brought by the children and sent to the 
hospital or to the sick. Members of the depart- 
ment who are ill, or those who for any cause may 
be shut in, should not be forgotten. Much should 
be made of Easter music. Careful preparation 
will be amply rewarded, and this day, like all the 
other special days, will become a memorable one 
in the lives of the children. Men may refuse to 
go to church; they may refuse to read the Bible; 
but they cannot get away from the spirit and the 
atmosphere of the two great holidays of the year, 
Christmas and Easter. 

ANNIVERSARY Day.—With many schools Anni- 
versary day is regarded as one of the most im- 
portant festivals of the year. What is its object? 
The aims of Anniversary day in the graded school 
may be stated as follows: First, to give a demon- 
stration to parents and interested friends of the 
work that is being done by the school throughout 
the year. Second, to provide a time of reunion 
when parents, former members, and friends of 
the school are specially invited to be present and 


SPECIAL DAYS 157 


worship with the school. Third, to give op- 
portunity to the friends of the school to subscribe 
money for its upkeep. With these objectives the 
morning and evening services will be the best op- 
portunity for advocating the second and third 
aims as above stated, while an afternoon service 
might well be planned for the demonstration. 
Such an afternoon session should be held in the 
departmental rooms. This Sunday afternoon 
demonstration is not something specially practised 
for or rehearsed, but offers a fair sample of the 
regular work of the year and gives parents and 
friends an opportunity of seeing at least one de- 
partment of the school’s activities as usually 
carried on. It is frequently the visitors’ day of 
the year. 

Graded schools find that a specialized program 
is attractive, and visitors are numerous. Some- 
times, however, schools prefer a united meeting of 
all the departments. When this plan is followed 
the meeting should be held in the church audi- 
torium or lecture-hall. One department—Begin- 
ners’, Primary, Junior, or Intermediate—should 
be responsible for arranging and carrying out the 
afternoon program. ‘The usual leader of the de- 
partment should be in charge. When this plan 
of the united session is followed, instead of the 


158 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


lesson being taught in small class groups by the 
individual teachers, the open school procedure 
is followed, the leader teaching the lesson to the 
entire group. In these circumstances the utmost 
care must be taken in the seating of auditorium 
or hall. The pupils of the department should be 
seated together, the other departments likewise 
in a body, and the visitors in a separate section. 

Sometime during the session the Cradle Roll 
class may be recognized in a brief ceremony, but 
for the most part it is better that after the first 
few minutes the Beginners should be allowed to 
retire to their own room for their own exercises 
and activities. If the Intermediates are demon- 
strating, it is probably better for the Primaries 
also to retire. 

Promotion Day.—For several reasons it is 
wise to have a fixed time in the year when pupils 
are promoted from one department to another. 
The observance of promotion day need not, how- 
ever, prevent the sending up of any individual 
pupils whom leaders may consider to have become 
ready earlier in the year. If any one season of 
the year is better than another it is probably the 
early autumn. Promotion day may then also 
become a Rally day after the summer holiday. 


te i a 


SPECIAL DAYS 159 
Parents and friends should be especially invited 
on this occasion. 

Promotion day gives the management a fine 
opportunity for saying and doing things that 
will interest not only the pupils themselves but 
parents and friends of the school as well. Care- 
ful preparation must, of course, be made for this 
special day. The date should be fixed a long 
time ahead so that the arrangements may be com- 
plete. The lists of names of pupils to be pro- 
moted must be carefully considered by the 
superintendent of promotion or by the responsible 
committee. The names of those to be promoted 
should be announced at the Sunday morning 
service, and either at that service or the evening 
service new teachers appointed for the year 
should be presented publicly by the minister. At 
both morning and evening services the topic of 
the day ought to be that of work with and for 
children and young people. Special sermons 
may be preached. 

Promotion-day afternoon service should be 
one of those inspiring occasions when the whole 
school meets together. In one school the follow- 
ing procedure was followed: The chairs were ar- 
ranged in semicircular form so that all would be 


160 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


brought within easy seeing and hearing distance. 
When all were assembled, a suitable, well known 
hymn of praise was sung. After this the names 
of the babes who had joined the Cradle Roll 
during the year were read by the Cradle Roll 
visitor, and at this point several mothers with 
Cradle Roll babies in their arms were brought 
to the front by the Cradle Roll superintendent. 
Then the names of those Cradle Roll members 
who, having reached four years of age, were now 
about to be promoted to the Beginners’ Depart- 
ment were read. ‘These little members were then 
conducted by the Cradle Roll visitor to the Be- 
ginners’ leader, who received these and led them 
to places provided specially for them among her 
four- and five-year-old children. All this was 
followed by a prayer for the Cradle Roll children, 
their mothers, their fathers, and their homes, and 
the singing of one of the cradle hymns. 

Next the names of the Beginners to be pro- 
moted into the Primary Department were read, 
and these were in turn presented by the leader 
of the Beginners’ Department to the leader of the 
Primary Department; and so the promotion con- 
tinued on and up through the departments, end- 
ing with the Adult Department. After the su- 
perintendent of each department had presented 


SPECIAL DAYS 161 


his or her children there was a momentary pause 
for silent or vocal prayer. During the promo- 
tions the whole school remained standing. In 
each case before the children were promoted their 
names were read from a scroll, which was then 
handed to the new leader. This whole exercise 
made a deep impression upon all present, and the 
interrelation of group with group was very 
effectively demonstrated. When the actual pro- 
motion service was over, all the departments 
except the Seniors and Adults retired to their 
own rooms and were dismissed, but the teachers 
and officers returned for a further service of 
devotion and dedication. During this service 
short addresses were given by the superintendent 
and the secretary, pressing the claims of the school 
upon the older pupils and adults. 

When possible the promotion exercises should 
be held in the church, and both minister and 
superintendent should take part in the service, 
which can be made a very impressive one. 

There is a fine opportunity here for the pastor 
of the church and the superintendent of the school. 
The minister on each Promotion day may read 
before the assembled people a solemn charge to 
the superintendent, and the superintendent in 
turn may owe a similar admonition to his fellow 


162 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


officers and teachers. This done effectively will 
make a deep impression on the school and will 
help to dignify the position of all concerned in the 
work. 

It may be noted that when pupils and teachers 
are promoted at the same time the teacher need 
not necessarily retain the same class in the new 
grade; it is often better that a change be made. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Lawrance, Marion, “Special Days in the Sunday School,” 
Revell, 1916. 

Lawrance, Marion, ‘““How to Conduct a Sunday School,” 
Revell, 1905. 


ee 


CHAPTER X 
WEEK-DAY ACTIVITIES 


“Tr will never rain roses. If you want more 
roses you must plant more trees.” ‘The modern 
Sunday-school is planting many new trees, and 
they are bearing fragrant blossoms. 

One of the chief differences between the old and 
new Sunday-school is that the modern school has 
introduced week-day activities into its program; 
the idea that the Sunday-school is a one-day-a- 
week affair is passing away. 

Assuming that the need for week-day activities 
is recognized, the question is what form should 
they take? Among other popular and worth- 
while activities one might mention play hours; 
nature clubs for both girls and boys; hockey, 
football, baseball, and tennis; summer camps; 
swimming; bathing; cycling. 

AcTIVITIES FoR INTERMEDIATES AND SENIORS. 
—The group unit for activities may be either the 
class or the department, or both class and depart- 


ment. Or activities closely correlated with the 
163 


164 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


Sunday instruction may be carried on by means 
of through-the-week meetings of the class groups, 
while the more general recreational and service 
activities may be provided for either by the de- 
partment as such or by a club to which all mem- 
bers of the department may be eligible. Much 
will depend upon the size of the school and upon 
local conditions. 

The program for the seasons’ activities should 
always be arranged in advance. It may be well 
to have it printed and a copy given to each mem- 
ber. ‘The department or club should never meet 
without a counselor or an officer, even if, as is 
sometimes necessary and wise, that leader be one 
of the older members. 

One club I know spends the first half of the 
evening in social games, and the second in listen- 
ing to a lecture, a reading, a debate, a lantern ex- 
hibition, or a discussion. Visitors from across the 
seas telling of life in distant lands are most at- 
tractive. Travelers by sea, land, or air, and 
foreigners—particularly Chinese, Japanese, In- 
dians—men and women of a different color from 
our own, describing their own country, are ever 
welcome. Talks on art, wireless evenings for 
listening in, Saturday rambles both in winter and 
summer, visits to the swimming-pool or local 


WEEK-DAY ACTIVITIES 165 


public gymnasium, are sure to be popular. 

There is much to be said for the programs of 
such organizations as the Scouts, Brownies, 
Camp-Fire Girls, Blue Birds, and Girl Reserves. 
The advocates of each of these claim that their 
organization is the best, but in any case much 
depends upon the leader and the environment. 
The great need is to have a place which boys and 
girls can use as their rendezvous and where 
teachers and helpers can meet them in the social 
activities of the leisure hour. 

Doubtless the one secret of success of clubs like 
Scouts, Camp-Fire Girls, and similar organiza- 
tions lies in the fact that they provide a ready- 
made program; there is always something to work 
for. 

Let us take two illustrations. A scout must 
become a tenderfoot before he is recognized a 
scout. To be a tenderfoot he must know the 
scout law, signs, salute, and significance of the 
badge; the composition and history of the national 
flag and the customary form of respect due to it. 
He must be able to tie four of the following knots: 
square, reef, sheet-bend, bow-line, fisherman’s, 
sheep-shank, halter, clove-hitch, timber-hitch, or 
two half-hitches. After he becomes a scout he 
must work for his second-class badge. ‘To get 


166 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


this he must be a scout for at least a month, have 
an elementary knowledge of first aid, be able to 
signal in semaphore or Morse, have done more or 
less tracking, be able to cover a mile at scout’s 
pace in twelve minutes (fifty steps running and 
fifty steps walking), and must cover the distance 
within thirty seconds neither too slow nor too fast. 

After this the scout works for his first-class 
badge. I never knew a scout to get his first- 
class badge under two years. Besides these ranks 
there are numbers of other badges to work for. 

In the Camp-Fire Girls’ organization there are 
the ranks of wood-gatherer, fire-maker, torch- 
bearer, and guardian, to work for. Before a girl 
can become a wood-gatherer she must have se- 
lected her name and symbol and be able to repeat 
the Wood-Gatherer’s Desire. She must have 
made a bead head-band with a symbol as design 
and have won at least fourteen elective honors 
chosen from the following crafts: home craft, 
health craft, camp craft, hand craft, and citizen- 
ship. Before she can make her application to 
become a fire-maker she must be able satisfactorily 
to cook and serve a meal. She must have done 
a certain amount of sewing, kept a written clas- 
sified account of money received and spent for at 
least one month, be able to tie a square knot five 


WEEK-DAY ACTIVITIES 167 


times in succession, have slept with open windows 
or out of doors for at least one month, and have 
taken at least half an hour’s daily outdoor 
exercise for one month; she must not have eaten 
between meals for one month, and she must be 
able to do a considerable amount of ambulance 
work, bandaging, and home nursing. 

Further tasks are required before she can be- 
come a torch-bearer. It will be readily seen how 
all these activities appeal to the romance, love of 
beauty, and poetry of the adolescent girl. 

Here is a program ready to hand; the manuals 
give complete details. A Scout or Camp-Fire 
Girl is never idle. There is always something 
to do. 

I have dealt chiefly with Scout and Camp-Fire 
Girl activities because I have been more especially 
associated with these and know more about them 
than I do of other forms of club life; but Guides, 
Boys’ Brigades, Home-Fire Girls, Woodcraft 
Chivalry, and similar organizations all have much 
to commend them. Particulars of these can be 
obtained from headquarters. 

It is very important, where any one of these 
organizations is used, that the unit of organiza- 
tion shall be the department or class with the same 
person serving as Sunday-school teacher and as 


168 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


leader or director of activities. Membership 
should be limited to members of the school. A 
divided leadership with separate organizations is 
almost certain to mean a divided loyalty. ‘Troops 
or brigades ought to be church organizations, 
recognizing themselves as such. In case of a very 
small school, codperation with another school may 
be advisable. Inter-troop activities, competitions, 
and possibly camps may be arranged. 

Activities ror CuHILpREN.—For Beginners, 
Primaries, and Juniors, week-day play hours are 
very important and extremely popular. In some 
localities there is not a great need, but play hours 
are most welcome in crowded city neighborhoods. 
In some districts there is need for Primary and 
even for Beginners’ play hours, but there is a 
genuine need almost everywhere for Junior play 
hours. 

As well as benefiting the children, depart- 
mental play hours help to bind the workers of 
the department into a unit. The leaders and 
teachers enjoy them, but the helpers enjoy them 
even more and should be encouraged to be present 
as much as possible and assist in the activities. 
Play hours should not be limited to the winter 
season only; there are advantages in keeping them 
going nearly the whole year. The summer ac- 


WEEK-DAY ACTIVITIES 169 


tivities should, when possible, be out of doors. 
Nature-rambles, hikes, picnics, are, especially for 
the city children, unforgettable experiences. 

There is no time when a child is so much him- 
self as when he is playing. One writer says, 
“You think you know your Primary child, but you 
will never know him unless you have played with 
him.” Certainly the quality of our Sunday- 
school work will be improved if we play with the 
children on the week-day. 

It is common practice to make story-telling one 
feature of the play hour. ‘The very best moral 
teaching can be given through the play-hour 
story; the opportunity is almost as great as that 
of the Sunday session, for the hour provides an 
effective means of expressing the Sunday teaching. 

There must be a well arranged program. Dis- 
order of any kind should be unknown in a play 
hour and will be if the children are kept busy 
from the moment they arrive until the time they 
leave; but they will not be kept busy unless fore- 
thought is given to the preparation. 

The Junior play hour should not be held very 
late in the evening, except in the vacation season. 
It will probably be difficult to gather earlier than 
four or four-thirty, but young children should 
not be kept later than seven o’clock. 


170 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


The leader should encourage parents to come 
occasionally as visitors. A record of attendance 
of children should be kept and the membership 
limited to the members of the department. ‘There 
should be no need to separate the sexes in the 
Primary or Junior play hours. 

The play hour affords a fine opportunity for 
Missionary propaganda. Missionary play hours 
are very popular, and so are the stories of children 
of other lands and missionary heroes. Most 
stories can be easily dramatized. In some dis- 
tricts Intermediate play hours are also popular, 
but naturally enough the Intermediate age tends 
toward the more highly organized club. 

One of the diffculties in connection with week- 
day work is to find suitable accommodation. 
Boys are not drawn to church parlors, and it 
must be said that they do not receive a very hearty 
welcome to them; boys are noisy, and they do not 
keep their shoes clean. Besides that they want 
and need a room that they can call their own, 
one that they can decorate to suit their tastes. 
If a loft or a rough-and-ready den can be fixed 
up for them, they gladly avail themselves of it, 
and they will put a great deal of work into making 
it and keeping it in shape. A rendezvous for boys 
gives a warm feeling of comradeship, and the 


WEEK-DAY ACTIVITIES 171 


church that provides one is a friendly church 
indeed. 

More must be done in the way of providing 
playgrounds for children. In some _ localities 
public school playgrounds are thrown open dur- 
ing vacations. This is particularly desirable, 
especially in the crowded cities where parks and 
open spaces are few and far between. Many 
churches are possessed of grounds that would 
make excellent play resorts if they were made 
available. The plea for parks and playgrounds 
is an insistent one and must be met. 

It is well that there should be a variety of 
week-day activities, for it is found in practice 
that those who may not be attracted to one form 
will take to another. We have found from ex- 
perience that not more than one third of the 
boys of a Junior or Intermediate Department are 
likely to be drawn into any one form of organiza- 
tion, such as the Boy Scouts. 

Activities For Younc Prorte.—When we 
consider the interests and needs of older adoles- 
cents we find that activities of a different type 
are required. ‘The leisure of the youth of the 
churches should be organized very largely by 
themselves with competent adult counsel. 

In the C. O. P. E. C. report on “Leisure” we 


172 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


find the following: “If games and music, lit- 
erature and drama, no less than Bible classes and 
prayer meetings, can be made into the ante- 
chambers of religion, the whole handling of leisure 
by some churches should undergo a change. 
By psychological and spiritual necessity people 
make demands upon religion according to their 
experience of life, and since young people are in 
the main preoccupied with the light side of life, 
the demand they make upon religion is for enjoy- 
ment without alloy. 

“Granted that the deepest things in religion 
only come home to the soul when it has tasted 
the bitter things in life, to demand such depth of 
the young is to ask them to be old before their 
time. Hence the one irreplaceable point of con- 
tact of the church with youth is in the provision 
of facilities for the natural expression of their 
high spirits, their comradeship, and their love 
of beauty.” 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Forbush, William Byron, “Manual of Play,” George W. 
Jacobs & Co., 1914. 

Gulick, Luther Halsey, “A Philosophy of Play,” Asso- 
ciation Press, 1920. 


WEEK-DAY ACTIVITIES 173 


Puffer, J. Adams, “The Boy and His Gang,’ Houghton 
Mifflin Co., 1912. 

Atkinson, Henry A., “The Church and the People’s 
Play,” Pilgrim Press, 1915. 

Richardson, Norman E., “The Church at Play,” Abing- 
don Press, 1922. 

Kephart, Horace, “Book of Camping and Woodcraft,” 
Outing Co., 1908. 

Seton, Ernest Thompson, “The Book of Woodcraft and 
Indian Lore,’ Doubleday, Page & Co., 1913. 

McCormick, William, ‘““The Boy and His Clubs,” Revell, 
1912. 

Bancroft, Jessie H., “Games for the Playground, Home, 
School and Gymnasium,’ Macmillan Co., 1909. 

Candler, Martha, “The Drama in Religious Service,” 
Century Co., 1922. 

“Handbook for Boys,’ Boy Scouts of 

America, 1916. 

“Book of the Campfire Girls,’ Campfire Girls, 

Doran, 1913. 














CHAPTER XI 
PRIZES AND REWARDS 


He would be a rash man who would say there 
is no place in life for a prize or a reward; there is. 
But that does not mean that prizes as used here- 
tofore in the Sunday-school are wise or necessary 
in the sphere of religious education. We hesitate 
to recommend prizes for the simple reason that we 
feel them to be neither necessary nor prudent. 
They are not necessary because it has been well 
demonstrated that schools can get along as well 
without them as with them. They are not pru- 
dent because they lower the tone and spirit of the 
school, and tone and spirit in the Sunday-school 
are of first importance. A record system is 
necessary, but when record-keeping is conceived 
primarily with conduct and lessons learned the 
system becomes extremely difficult to administer. 
Sunday-schools have small classes and numerous 
teachers with limited educational experience, and 
this makes the administration of the mark system 


a moral impossibility, for scarcely any two 
. 174 


PRIZES AND REWARDS 175 


teachers will judge and mark exactly alike. In 
a day-school where marking can be done with 
some degree of accuracy there is less to be said 
against the system, but in Sunday-school the 
markings in numerous instances are almost sure 
to be unfair. 

Patterson Du Bois says “A girl of ten on 
handing her monthly school report to her*parents 
remarked, ‘Our reports are awfully funny. If 
you stay away you get a better mark than if you 
are there.? A child of nine told her father that 
her Sunday-school teacher had marked two chil- 
dren in the class ‘good’ when they were bad. 
‘Last Sunday,’ she said, ‘she marked them good 
because they didn’t know they were doing what 
they oughtn’t and so she wouldn’t count it against 
them, but next Sunday she would mark them bad 
if they acted the same way. And now she marks 
them good when they were just as bad.’ The 
child evidently approved the equity of the first 
marking, but not the equity of the second.” ? 

If the Sunday-school stands for the teaching 
of morals and religion we must see to it that any 
system of marking is administered fairly. As 
a matter of fact experience shows this to be almost 
impossible. It is easier to administer rewards of 

1“The Culture of Justice,” pp. 186-187. 


176 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


attendance, but there are times when absence is 
more deserving of a reward then presence. A 
boy of thirteen who had been absent from school 
was called upon by his teacher, who found him 
taking care of his invalid mother. That boy 
wanted to come to Sunday-school, for his com- 
rades were there, but his duty kept him at home. 
He lost his attendance prize when he most de- 
served reward. If we make exceptions, the diffi- 
culties of administration are immensely increased. 

But prizes are not necessary. It is not possi- 
ble to demonstrate that prizes in the long run 
really increase attendance. One writer, in an 
article advocating prize-giving, says: “From 
careful observation I very much doubt whether 
the offer of a prize for attendance has a great 
deal to do with the child’s actual presence, for the 
great interest of the very children who gain the 
prizes would make them loyal and regular with- 
out any reward. These children who gain the 
prizes for regularity and punctuality are the 
brightest and most satisfactory from all other 
points of view.” 

The most important factor in moral education 
is the formation of right habits of feeling. Keep 
in mind that while the act is important the mo- 
tive for the act is more important. To get the 


PRIZES AND REWARDS 77 


child to act from a secondary motive may defeat 
the very aim in view, for character is based on 
motive. ‘Truly, the action is important and the 
oft-repeated action still more important, but more 
important than all else is the reason or motive 
behind the action. To get a child to act because 
of a prize or reward may possibly be permissible, 
but it is dangerous. ‘To get a child to avoid an 
action because he fears the punishment may leave 
him worse off at heart than if he had done the 
wrong. Plato tells what men brave only out of 
cowardice. ‘lo reward a child for some generous 
deed may develop in him the love of rewards rather 
than the habit of generosity. It is “the motive 
that becomes habitual.” If children could be 
induced to act right morally because of the hope 
of reward a millionaire’s child might have a good 
chance. Right feeling must be the urge of right 
action, or character is poisoned at the springs. 
Right action is immensely valuable both to the 
individual and to society, but right motive is more 
valuable, indeed, indispensable. 

A prize is usually something which only one or 
two can win, a reward something which all who 
come up to a certain standard can obtain. It is 
easy to harm a child by too much rewarding. 
There is some basis of truth for the following 


178 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


story, though the writer does not vouch for it. 
A boy who had learned a bad word, and was using 
it, was promised by his father that he would get 
a shilling if he ceased using it for a month. At 
the end of the month he got the shilling, but he 
came to his father a few days later, so the story 
goes, and said, “Father, I’ve got another word 
now; this one is worth half a crown.” 

So far as securing good attendance is concerned, 
my experience is that there are not too few chil- 
dren in the average Sunday-school but too many. 
I mean that on general principles there are more 
children in the average Sunday-school than can 
be properly taken care of. ‘The aim should be 
not so much more children as better work with 
those we have. Experience is proving that where 
the schools are right the children will attend. 
We doubt very much if the prize system aug- 
ments attendance to any worth-while extent. 

There is also the danger that officers and 
teachers who depend on prizes and rewards will 
neglect the methods that really make for im- 
provement. 

It may be argued that children get benefit from 
books awarded as prizes. No one will object to 
children obtaining good books when they need 
them, either through the library or through ju- 


PRIZES AND REWARDS 179 


dicious gifts, but that can be done without estab- 
lishing a system of prizes and rewards. The 
whole question is more or less controversial; the 
point is that every effort should be made to keep 
the atmosphere of the school up to a standard of 
excellence that will make prize-giving and re- 
wards unnecessary. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Du Bois, Patterson, “The Culture of Justice,” Dodd, 
Mead & Co., 1909. 


CHAPTER XII 
OFFICERS AND MANAGEMENT 


Wuat officers are essential to the Sunday- 
school as we have described it? ‘This question in 
effect means, what officers are required in order 
that the graded school may exercise its necessary 
functions? ‘There has been a tendency in some 
quarters to multiply officers unnecessarily. 

Tue Mrinister.—The minister of a church 
should have a large place in the activities of his 
Sunday-school. This does not mean necessarily 
that he should teach a class regularly or be leader 
in any department. He ought certainly to be in 
close touch with the weekly training classes and 
from time to time should lead the worship services 
of the various departments. If the minister is 
willing to give time to a small group of people he 
can occasionally be of great service in one or an- 
other of the departmental training classes. The 
graded Sunday-school needs the help of all the 
scholarship available. 


Occasionally the minister and teachers may find 
180 


OFFICERS AND MANAGEMENT 181 


an hour in the week when they can meet together 
for the study of some subject in which the minis- 
ter is especially fitted to help them. Such special 
courses might be a valuable contribution to the 
efficiency and spiritual life of the teachers. 

The minister can also help the school greatly 
by his pastoral visitation, and in this connection 
will of course keep in touch with the superin- 
tendents of departments, particularly of the 
Cradle Roll. 

He would do well to attend the meetings of im- 
portant committees, but he should be careful not 
to attempt to dominate them. At certain times 
he can be of great help in the Young People’s and 
Adult Departments, and in the Parent’s Depart- 
ment his ministry can be of great value. ‘To 
these services will be added his pulpit ministry, in 
the course of the fulfilment of which he has an 
incomparable opportunity to further the work of 
religious education in his church and community. 

Tue SvuperiInrTENDENT.—The superintendent 
of the modern Sunday-school should be a leading 
spirit in the religious education of his church. 
From a perusal of these pages it might at first 
be thought that the modern Sunday-school 
minimizes the duties of the general superin- 
tendent. True, these duties are different from 


182 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


those of the superintendent of yesterday. ‘Then 
the school had one leader only; now there are 
several, one at least in each department. The 
superintendent’s duties have changed with the 
change of method and organization, but his posi- 
tion is none the less important and his job none 
the less great. Nowadays the superintendent is 
seen less and heard less, but his influence is felt 
more than ever. ‘To him falls the duty of seeing 
that everything runs smoothly and harmoniously. 
He is the hub of the wheel; around him all the 
activities of the school revolve. He is a man in 
authority, as well as a man under authority. He 
is like the rudder of a great ship; a more or less 
invisible force. He believes in the unimportance 
of prominence. He learns to efface himself; he 
is not consumed by his own dignity, and is always 
searching for more talented people than himself. 
He may fill a gap occasionally, but chiefly he is 
the organizer, the administrator, the one who has 
an eye upon all the departments; the one who helps 
to keep the diverse groups functioning as a com- 
plete whole. His business is to set others to work. 
He never does what he can get some one else to do. 
He will delegate to others numerous details seem- 
ingly unimportant that in the aggregate con- 
stitute the difference between an orderly and a dis- 


OFFICERS AND MANAGEMENT 183 


orderly school. For example, he will see that 
some one takes care of the early pupils—as great 
a problem perhaps as the late comer; that some 
one guards the teachers from the “baby problem,” 
which is perhaps a means of greater disturbance 
than the “boy problem”; he will see to it that no 
department of the school is disturbed during any 
of its exercises. He will take care of the care- 
taker. He will be assured that every doorkeeper 
is in his place, and that the hinges of the doors as 
well as the wheels of the organizations are well 
oiled. He will see to it that no visitor is allowed 
to disturb a class. So far as possible he will per- 
sonally welcome new pupils and see to it that a 
suitable place in a suitable class is provided for 
them. 

Tue Drecrtor or Reticious Epucation.—An 
appreciation of the central importance of re- 
ligious education has developed rapidly in recent 
years, and the conviction has taken possession of 
many leaders of the church that its direction, par- 
ticularly in large churches, cannot much longer be 
committed to the hands of volunteers serving upon 
marginal time. As a result a new profession has 
come into existence, that of the director of re- 
ligious education. Like the pastor, the director is 
usually a full-time, paid officer. His special re- 


184 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


sponsibility is the educational program of the 
church. He may act as general superintendent 
of the Sunday-school, though this is the exception 
rather than the rule. He is the supervisor of 
teaching, the trainer of teachers, the active head 
of the educational administration in the church. 
This does not mean that nothing remains for a 
general superintendent of the Sunday-school to 
do. It does mean that the supervisory burdens 
of the superintendent are lightened and that the 
entire work of the school may be placed upon a 
higher educational plane. ‘The church cannot be 
said to be seriously or adequately facing its re- 
sponsibility for the religious education of its chil- 
dren and youth until it places the leadership of its 
educational program upon a full-time, profes- 
sional basis. 

Tue Secretary-TRrEAsuRER.—An efficient sec- 
retary is a priceless possession. Each department 
should have its own departmental secretary. 
These all work with the general secretary and as- 
sist the superintendent in his manifold duties. 
The general secretary keeps the minutes of all 
meetings. Assisted by a statistical secretary he is 
responsible for the school records. He keeps the 
departments supplied with any necessary mate- 
rial, such as writing- and drawing-paper, pencils, 


OFFICERS AND MANAGEMENT 185 


plasticine, and other necessary supplies. His 
duties, like those of the superintendent, are many 
and if faithfully performed invaluable. 

On the business side of administrative manage- 
ment the Sunday-school should be neither under- 
organized nor over-organized. <A well organized 
school will of necessity have to place considerable 
power in the hands of its executive officer, the 
superintendent, and frequently he will need to act 
without consulting his colleagues. For certain 
committees there is a clear case. 

Tue GENERAL SunpDAY-ScHoort ComMITTEE.— 
Increasingly this committee is coming to be known 
as the Committee on Religious Education. It is 
appointed annually by the governing body of the 
church. It consists of the minister; the superin- 
tendent of the Sunday-school; the director of re- 
ligious education, where one exists; the secretary- 
treasurer; the heads of the various departments ; 
and possibly some members at large. ‘This com- 
mittee has immediate responsibility, next to the 
executive officers, for the educational policies and 
program of the school. It may also act as a busi- 
ness committee. In this case practically all mat- 
ters of finance come under its purview. 

Tue SvuPERINTENDENT’s CapineT.—A_ small 
administrative committee is required consisting of 


186 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


the superintendent, the superintendent of each 
department of the school, and the secretary- 
treasurer. For much of the year it should meet 
once every week, particularly in large schools. It 
deals with all the important details of Sunday- 
school management. Here interdepartmental af- 
fairs are adjusted. If teachers or pupils are to 
be moved from one department to another, the 
transfer should be approved by this committee. 
Arrangements for anniversaries, special days, and 
promotions are all considered by it. Indeed, al- 
most all of the detail work of the school is brought 
to the attention of this committee, and only mat- 
ters of special importance or those involving major 
items of finance are referred to the general com- 
mittee. 

SpeciaL Commirrees.—Occasional and special 
committees should be formed for special events. 
In the work of the Sunday-school, as in that of 
other organizations, an increasing place is being 
given to special committees. In this way a 
larger number of persons are enlisted in the 
school’s activities and receive thereby some meas- 
ure of training in service. Special committees 
also contribute to expedition. As a rule they act 
more promptly than standing committees. 

By some such simple organization as has been 





OFFICERS AND MANAGEMENT 187 


outlined a school moderate in size can be readily 
and efficiently administered. A large school may 
need more and larger committees, but care should 
be taken that the management does not become 
over-weighted by machinery. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Cope, Henry Frederick, “Organizing the Church 
School,’ Geo. H. Doran Co., 1923. 

Lawrance, Marion, “The Church-School Blue-Print,”’ 
Standard Publishing Co., 1924. 


CHAPTER XIII 
VISITING AND VISITORS 


AT least once a year the parents of the children 
in the four lower departments of the Sunday- 
school should be visited by the superintendent of 
that department. No end of good may be done 
by this visiting. It links home and school; it of- 
ten clears up misunderstandings; it affords an op- 
portunity for the superintendent to become more 
intimately acquainted with his pupils, to counsel 
parents on problems of conduct and child train- 
ing, and to enlist the sympathy and active co- 
operation of the parents in the work of the school. 
It gives the leader an acquaintance with the homes 
from which the pupils come, and thus enables him 
to adapt the program and lessons to meet their 
needs. Often discovery is made of children not 
in Sunday-school and the way opened for recruit- 
ing them for membership. 

Teachers and helpers should be encouraged to 
visit the homes of their pupils, but the yearly visit 


of the superintendent is something of special im- 
188 


VISITING AND VISITORS 189 


portance. If the leader does it one year she will 
never wish to omit it. The Primary superin- 
tendent would in many cases be well advised to 
extend her visiting to the homes of her helpers. 

Absentees should be visited without fail. When 
a pupil is absent the secretary should give a 
written notice on a printed card to the teacher and 
see to it that that teacher visits the pupil and 
learns the cause of the absence. In case of illness 
the visiting teacher should promptly inform the 
superintendent, who should call. The cards used 
by the secretary may be printed as follows: 


IRENE DIS HA 6 ANG cone, G a tt ale! al Aysie tee eee 
DEP UAUGLIRTUACHOL Vil, 53:0) v{s0aid a's wis vieixiae'si =! 6 hs 
CETL RETICAL Vis 5.5. 5d 0 pit gala ah wliphnh tes cs wim $b 
Pane ang wddress Of pupil) oo... sk ead ass 
Has been absent for....Sundays 

Please visit and return this card, with your 


written report, to the Secretary next Sunday. 


Vistrors.—The Sunday-school should receive as 
well as extend visits. Parents and strangers alike 
should be welcomed and shown every courtesy. 
Visitors should be invited to worship with the de- 
partments in which they are interested. Special 
seats must of course be provided and the visitors 
so seated that they do not interfere in any way 


199 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


with the usual work of the school. On this poimt 
the greatest care is needed. Visitors should not 
be permitted to move about the room, nor as a rule 
should they move from one department to another. 
One department on one day ordinarily is enough 
for any visitor. Occasional exception is made to 
this rule, but when that is done arrangements must 
be very carefully and personally made, for if one 
visitor moves from place to place others will want 
to follow suit. It is a pleasure to receive visitors, 
but it 1s also a responsibility, and arrangements +o 
them must be carefully thought out. 

Care should be taken for the proper seating of 
the visitors. Chairs should be placed some dis- 
tance from the classes. The visitors should be 
asked to enter into the spirit of the worship, but 
they need not take any audible part in the service. 
Visitors should not enter after the session has 
commenced nor leave before the last child has left 
theroom. They should be cautioned against mak- 
ing any demonstration that would attract the 
notice of the pupils. 

Very special care should be taken before in- 
troducing visitors into the Senior Department; 
adolescents are more self-conscious than children, 
and sometimes visitors are not welcome; the mem- 
bers should certainly be consulted. 


VISITING AND VISITORS 191 


Offerings may be received from visitors as well 
as from the teachers and children. In some 
schools the money given by visitors is used to- 
ward the upkeep of the school. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Lawrance, Marion, “How to Conduct a Sunday School,” 
Revell, 1905. . 


CHAPTER XIV 
GIVING 


Tur whole question of children’s offerings 
ought to come under review and revision by of- 
ficers of the Sunday-school. The general idea in 
the past has been that by getting the children 
early in life to bring offerings they will grow into 
habits of generosity; but the study of the psy- 
chology of the relation of habit and motive make 
us pause and think deeper. Here are some ques- 
tions that need answering. Will a man be a less 
generous contributor because he postpones his 
giving until he is old enough to appreciate what 
he is doing? Does early giving become habitual 
as does walking, talking, or riding a bicycle? 

If we could really discover the motive in the 
child’s soul we might get some surprises with re- 
gard to giving; we might find, for instance, that 
he brings the coin purely because it is given to 
him. Perhaps he asked for it because he loves to 
hear the clink of the coin as it drops into the 


offering-bowl. Or it may be that he brings it 
192 


GIVING 193 


because he likes to be doing as others are doing, 
possibly because he loves to be seen giving it. 
There is not in any of these reasons a real motive 
of generosity, and therefore the question may 
wisely be asked, ought we to encourage children to 
bring offerings at all? If so, at what age, and 
under what circumstances? We have too high an 
opinion of child character to wish to attribute an 
unworthy motive; nevertheless we must look facts 
in the face. 

Let us try to find some valid principles upon 
which to base our attitude toward. the question of 
giving. 

The child should not be a mere carrier of some 
one else’s money. He should give what is his own. 
If this principle is accepted, offerings of money 
will be ruled out of the Beginners’ Department al- 
together, and probably, in a large measure, out 
of the Primary Department. Little children do 
not possess much money of their own, and even if 
they did would never feel the joy of the sacrifice 
of giving money. May we conclude that the child 
ought not to be urged to give until he begins to 
possess for himself, that he cannot be a giver until 
he is really a possessor, that little good and pos- 
sibly an amount of harm will follow his being made 
into a mere transmitter, that real generosity must 


194 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


be self-initiated? We have stated elsewhere in 
this book that habits of action beget habits of feel- 
ing. That is true, but if it is generosity we are 
aiming to develop we must be sure that the initia- 
tory action is a genuinely generous one. 

Making clear the objective ought to be an in- 
teresting part of the proceedings of the depart- 
ment. The child should know what he is giving 
his money for. He should also have a part in de- 
ciding for what it is to be given. If money is 
solicited for certain designated objects, where they 
are, who they help, and exactly what they succeed 
in doing should be forthcoming. 

The object to which he gives ought to appeal to 
the child’s feelings. With children the appeal 
must be put concretely. ‘There is little use in 
telling the child that his money is to be sent to 
help a black brother in Africa, or a brown brother 
in India. By pictures, stories, or a visit from 
some member of the race in question we must help 
the child to visualize the exact situation ; otherwise 
there will be no feeling tone stimulated. 

The abstract phrase “to help” is inadequate. 
The kind of help needed ought to be stated. We 
grown-ups use the word “money” to mean food, 
clothing, education, and what not; but children 
think more concretely than we do and must be as- 


GIVING 195 


sisted to appreciate the content of the word. I 
know a school that encouraged its Junior Depart- 
ment members not to bring money for the far- 
away children but to bring pencils and exercise- 
books, knives and mouth-organs, things that were 
actually needed by the African children. This 
was perhaps inconvenient for the school officials 
and also for the missionaries themselves, but it 
is the child we must first consider. The appeal 
was immensely stronger than a mere appeal for 
money. Modern Sunday-schools are changing 
over from the giving of money to the giving of 
gifts. It is reported that a Junior Department 
sent two hundred Bibles to a mission school in 
Korea. It is to be hoped that the children saw 
the Bibles and handled them and had pointed out 
to them some of the familiar passages in the Ko- 
rean language. It is such experiences that are 
unforgettable. 

In the presentation of the appeal we ought, of 
course, to avoid making the children pity the ob- 
ject. If the appeal makes them look down with 
feelings of superiority on the folk who are of dif- 
ferent color and condition, then we can better 
postpone to a more convenient season the presenta- 
tion of our appeal. It is very easy to do damage. 

The child ought, when possible, to know how his 


196 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


money is being used. Reports in concrete form 
should be solicited telling of results. Any “thank 
you” letters that come from the recipients should 
be read to the children, or anything in the nature 
of response communicated to them. 

If toys and flowers are sent a hospital, then a 
visit to the hospital will be helpful. It is not 
enough that the teachers should see the charity 
dispensed ; the children should accompany them. 
This could be done by visits to certain parts of the 
hospitals in classes or possibly even as a whole 
department. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Lawrance, Marion, “The Sunday School Organized for 
Service,’ Pilgrim Press, 1914. 


CHAPTER XV 


TRADITIONALISM 


LowELL says, 


Therefore, think not the Past is wise alone, 
For Yesterday knows nothing of the best. 


The Uniform Lesson has in the past been a very 
distinct obstruction in the pathway of progress 
in the development of the Sunday-school, but now 
that the principle of graded instruction has been 
conceded, this obstacle is removed. ‘There re- 
mains one other almost unsurmountable barrier. 
This barrier is traditionalism. 

The new is in bondage to the old, the present 
to the past. ‘The young are under the dominance 
of those who are grown up, the weak ruled by 
those who are stronger. Beaten tracks are the 
most pleasant. Fixed customs seem impossible to 
change without revolution, and as Christian men 
prefer peace to war, the errors of the past perpet- 


uate themselves. 
197 


198 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


The old are imitated by the young. Child 
study has disclosed that for every time a child 
imitates another child he imitates an adult nine 
times. ‘The same is true in social life. Not only 
does an individual member of the social cosmos 
imitate his ancestor in action, but he does so also 
in thought and belief. 

Conventionality not only demands that we copy 
one another, but also that we copy those who have 
gone before us. What has been done in the past 
is a much easier and safer thing to do than that 
which has not been done before. Psychologically, 
it is the new and the strange that is perilous to 
man; therefore the average man seeks safety in 
repetition, and the rut may easily become the 
grave. ‘True, alongside this traditional feeling 
we find the pioneering instinct and the love of ad- 
venture, but there is only one Scott or one Shack- 
leton in a million. It takes a pioneer to break 
barriers. One who attempts to do anything 
really new is looked upon with suspicion and the 
social screw is put upon him. Nothing is so sa- 
cred as a rut and no one more annoying than he 
who jolts us out of it. In the words of George 
Bernard Shaw: “Sponge out the past, not because 
the past has nothing to teach, but because we must 
rewrite its faded script ourselves. Let us press 





TRADITIONALISM 199 


forward to the new vision and the new adventures, 
and escape from the tyranny of the past to the 
wider horizons and free untrammelled thought. 
Every generation should have its own fresh, fear- 
less expression. ‘All this academic art is far 
worse than the trade in sham antique.’ ‘The cake 
of custom rests like a blight on the living spirit 
of men. The cruelties of society are cruelties 
practised by kind people who have ceased to feel 
and whose understanding is sterilized by tradi- 
tion.” Pioneers of new thought have all been 
heretics in the opinion of the public. It is the old 
and the familiar that are orthodox. 

Ideas in the mind, like water on the hillside, 
readily find their accustomed channel. Every 
new thought means a new nerve path; a fresh idea 
necessarily means actual physical growth in the 
brain. To acquire a new language or even a 
new manner of walking requires the making of 
fresh paths in the brain and spinal cord. Not 
only so, but the stimulus must at least for a 
time be inhibited. Learning to ride a bicycle 
means that new brain-cells must be called into 
activity and codrdinated for the work in hand. 
We prefer the old because the new means effort, 
will-power, and force. 

A child is afraid of the unknown; he does n’t 


200 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


choose to be left in the dark. Primitive man had 
the same fear. Perhaps he was not afraid of his 
fellow-men or the wild beasts of the forest, but 
the unseen and the unknown were a terror to him. 
That which is customary delivers man from his 
fear. An English lord chancellor once declared 
that he was in favor of all established institutions, 
and he was in favor of them because they were 
established. The argument is unsound, but the 
illustration is to the point. Attempt to change 
the spelling of a word, and no matter how old- 
fashioned the word may be, or how much waste 
of time and labor the writing may involve, you 
find at once that the old is preferred to the new. 
T-h-r-u spells “through” but still we prefer the 
old. Hygienically it is better to cremate than 
to bury, but a custom that is ages old is not easily 
disestablished. 

Primitive man fears to break an old custom, 
lest the gods cease to favor him. A Chinese wor- 
ships his ancestors. In China education and 
progress have been arrested. There the living 
are in bondage to the dead. The language, the 
manners and customs of the people, have crys- 
tallized ; the personality of the individual is over- 
shadowed by the family of the past. For a thing 
to be antique in China is a proof of its correctness. 


TRADITIONALISM 201 


The spirit of Confucius, who lived in the fifth 
century, overshadows the individual of the 
twentieth century. Veneration for the dead is 
greater than veneration for the living. The feet 
of a Chinese woman are not so tightly bound as 
the mind of a Chinese child. When veneration of 
the past exceeds obligation to the present there is 
slavery. Says Sheffield, “The scholars of any 
school in China could rewrite the leading classics 
from memory.” 

The realms that are dominated by the spirit of 
peace are the ones that suffer most from tradi- 
tionalism. Competition breaks away from the 
past and disregards it. Old customs cannot live 
in the realm of competition. The soldier goes 
forth from his own land into a new territory; he 
goes to conquer; new methods are invented; those 
of the past are not efficient enough. ‘There must 
be larger ships, machine-guns, airships, and 
aéroplanes; the bow and arrow are useless. 

In the realm of business competition tradition 
must go. As Selbie says: ‘T'raditionalism is 
like an old coat, very comfortable, but it will not 
hold together for ever.” That which was good 
twenty-five years ago must be dispensed with now. 
The machinery of the nineteenth century will not 
answer for the twentieth. The cry, “Our fathers 


202 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


did it this way,” will not serve in the great battle 
of business. An Englishman who was the pro- 
prietor of an old business was feeling the competi- 
tion of an American who opened a shop next door 
to him in exactly the same line. Accordingly, he 
put up a sign, “Established 100 years.” To this 
the American retorted with another sign, “Es- 
tablished last week; all goods new and fresh.” 

The form of the wedding ceremony, the corona- 
tion of the king, church customs, educational 
methods, modes of spelling, personal greetings, all 
of which belong to the realm of peace, change less 
quickly than those which belong to the realm of 
strife. 

Again, where large organizations are concerned, 
changes are not readily made. The individual 
may pioneer, but collective bodies move slowly. 
No church or society ever led a reformation; re- 
form always begins with individuals. An organ- 
ization is more conservative than the individuals 
who make up that organization. 

One of the most powerful forces against reor- 
ganization is this tradition of the past. Those 
who would change a time-honored method must 
expect opposition. There is a battle with that 
which is behind as well as that which is in front. 


Traditionalism is a difficult foe to overcome. In 


TRADITIONALISM 203 


it we may have a bulwark of safety, but we have 
also a menace to progress. Whether traditional- 
ism be friend or foe, it has to be reckoned with. 
Those who would reform the old-fashioned 
Sunday-school will find in traditionalism a for- 
tress difficult to overthrow. Not only so but they 
will also find that for a long time to come there 
will be the ever recurring danger of reversion to 
type. New methods will need pluck and persever- 
ance until they are firmly established. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Ross, Edward A., “Social Psychology,’ Macmillan Co., 
1908. 


CHAPTER XVI 
LILY WORK 


WE are told that when Solomon built the temple 
“at the top of the pillars there was lily work.” 

“And he set up the pillars in the porch of the 
temple, and he set up the right pillar and called 
the name thereof Jachin; and he set up the left 
pillar and called the name thereof Boaz. And 
upon the top of the pillars was lily work; so was 
the work of the pillars finished.” 

Pillars for strength; lily work for beauty. 
Now, whether we are building a temple, building a 
home, building a Sunday-school, or building a 
character, at the top of the pillars there must be 
lily work. There is a large place for beauty in 
religious education. 

There is such a thing as being utilitarian to the 
neglect or even the exclusion of appreciation of 
little arts that make all the difference between 
beauty and ugliness. There is a place for beauty 


as well as for utility. Ruskin’s idea was a com- 
204 


LILY WORK 205 


bination of usefulness and beauty. So was 
Solomon’s, for the lily work added strength as 
well as beauty. The architect who is also an 
artist puts his thoughts of God into the mighty 
cathedral, the garden city, or the simple home he 
is constructing. I know a garden city where 
beauty abounds. It has been achieved at no great 
financial cost, for it is necessary that the houses 
should rent, and the venture be a profitable one. 
But the architect has made beauty out of trifles 
in design. The long sloping roof, the pretty 
porch, the quaint knocker on the door, the well 
arranged garden, the care of the trees in the 
street; in a word the simple things that are often 
overlooked—lily work. Jean Paul says, “Art is 
not the bread of life, it is the wine.” 

Intuitively we love the beautiful, but apprecia- 
tion of beauty is a tender plant and needs careful 
nurturing. Instinctively we all wish to look our 
best and to make the most of our appearance, no 
matter how difficult that may be. 

In furnishing a room it is taste that makes the 
difference. Beauty expresses itself in form and 
color. A well furnished room is as remarkable for 
what is left out as for that which is included. 

Nature is full of lily work. “A garden is a 
lovesome thing, God wot.” Every tree has its 


206 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


flowers and fruit. Beauty is prodigal in field and 
forest. 


Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 
And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 


If every blossom produced its fruit the branches 
of the trees would be broken to earth. Blossoms 
are for beauty as well as for utility. Nature is 
superabundant in her provision. It is that which 
is left over, the extras, superfluities as we some- 
times call them, that make the difference. 

In young life everything is beautiful—the little 
lamb, the young calf, the filly, the kitten, the little 
child. Therefore, that which has to do with youth 
must be beautiful. 

In the day-school there must be lily work. The 
emotional nature of the child must be nurtured. 
Certainly wherever children are we must have 
beauty. ‘“‘Beauty,” Emerson says, “is the pilot 
of the young soul.”” Beauty should be the dowry 
of every child. Our day-schools must be beauti- 
ful. Their very physical appearance become 
part of the child. To quote Walt Whitman 
again: 


A child went forth every day 
And the first object that he looked upon 
That object he became. . . 


LILY WORK 207 


Most of the school-rooms of the world are as yet 
“plain, bare, monotonous vaults.” Although it 
is now nearly fifty years since Dickens pointed 
out the need of artistic form and decoration in 
schools, we are only beginning to awaken to the 
fact that the architecture, the coloring, the 
pictures on the walls, the very furniture, influence 
the characters of children perhaps even more than 
the teaching. 

And what of the Sunday-school environment? 
An atmosphere of beauty and harmony is what we 
are seeking. Religion is caught as well as taught. 
The rooms must be beautiful. ‘There must be 
pictures, with care taken in their choice; flowers 
everywhere; colors that blend; a pianist who is an 
artist; hymns of distinction. 

And what shall we say of the superintendent? 
What of her dress, her manner, her face? May 
there not be lily work here, too; a personality 
made lovely by the contemplation of the face 
divine? 

And what of our homes? Think what these 
might be like if beauty and courtesy abounded 
everywhere: 


Of courtesy, it is much less 
Than courage of heart and holiness, 


208 THE MODERN SUNDAY-SCHOOL 


Yet in my walks it seems to me 
That the grace of God is in courtesy. 


So whether we are building a temple or a home, 
a school or a character, at the top of the pillars 
there must be lily work. Jesus was the Rose of 
Sharon, the Bright and Morning Star, the Lily 
of the Valley. He revealed the beauty of God. 
It is for us to see that we do not hide it. 





f 


iis 
1 1012 01378 7165 


ow et 
aa td 














